At The End Of The Dreams
by Ella L
Summary: SEQUEL TO IN THE HANDS OF THE DEVIL: The survivors of the abduction try to ignore the memories and the influence of the past traumatic events. Until a certain telegram arrives. And not only a telegram. It's not over...not at all.
1. Chapter 1

**At The End Of The Dreams…**

**By**

**Ella L.**

…

**Sequel to_ "In The Hands Of The Devil"_**

…

**(This is the translation of my already completed German story "Am Ende der Träume…" which can be found here too)**

…

…

"_Do you think folks will ever go to the moon?"_

"_I think, Brian, … that anything is possible."_

_(Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; The Man In The Moon)_

…

…

1.

There was blood everywhere... and the piercing screams of death of a man who was bound to a tree … the malicious laugh of another man mixed with them … and more screams, desperate, horrified screams of a woman, whose voice sounded completely hoarse already.

The image gradually became blurred and darker, the sound lower, as if somebody had spread a sheet over the scene; only the screams of the woman remained as loud as ever and in the end it was as if there was nothing else in the world but these screams…

It took a while, until Michaela woke up as much as she could, for her to notice that it was herself who screamed this way.Sully had witnessed the situation a few times already and he tried to free her gently but as quickly as possible from this nightmare. He took her into his arms and waited for her resistance to become weaker; he called her name over and over again, loudly and clearly. Finally she opened her eyes, distraught at first, but then she looked at him, felt his nearness, recognized her room in their house and became aware that she had dreamt once again. The same horrible dream that kept haunting her at regular intervals since they had barely escaped with their lives from these cruel kidnappers three month ago, she and Hank Lawson, who was abducted along with her. But in her dream they didn't escape and the abductors carried out their worst threat every time.

She hadn't forgotten that moment, when she had realized what they intended to do, her horror, her helplessness at the sight of the complete lack of mercy of those men.

They wanted to scalp Hank in front of her eyes and it only wasn't done, because Wenona shot one of the men in the last second… Wenona…

She pressed herself close to Sully and took deep breaths.

Sully just held her tight; it wasn't necessary to talk about it; they had done that, more than once. Actually Michaela had got over it, she had pursued her normal life, without being strained or scared by the past events, long ago. It was completely different to how it had been after the attempt on her life, when she hadn't dared to even leave the house for weeks.

Just these nightmares had remained this time.

There was a soft knock at the door.

Michaela and Sully exchanged a short and meaningful look. Then Sully said: "Come in, Brian."

The boy timidly opened the door and cast a worried glance through the crack: "Everything all right?" he asked and his eyes were focused on his mother. She gave him a reassuring nod and said: "Yes, Brian, it's all right. I only dreamt. Has Katie been woken up?"

"Yeah, but she already fell asleep again."

Michaela softly smiled at him. "Thank you for looking after her. You should go back to bed too and get a bit more sleep."

Brian nodded and shut the door.

At the time of Michaela's abduction he had been with Matthew in Philadelphia visiting Colleen and Andrew. The shock, when he had heard about it, was huge, even if everything had been long past by that time, and since then he had seemed to be less carefree. He quite often felt the need to make sure that everybody in his family was fine and he often wrote to Colleen, but when the conversation came to another visit in a year, he refused to talk about it.

Michaela thought of that now, as she looked at the closed door. Then she sat up. She couldn't sleep anymore anyway. Sully cast a questioning look at her, but she kissed him comfortingly on his forehead and said: "I'm getting up, but you can stay in bed a little longer, that's all right." She put on a dressing gown and left the room.

Outside the morning was already beginning to dawn; the sun would rise very soon. Michaela didn't light a lamp but went downstairs in the semi-darkness, and opened the front door.

She took a step outside into the cold morning air and savoured it. It was exactly what she needed now. She had to feel herself.

The rising sun bathed the sky in a beguiling, intense red, which gradually became softer and paler. Michaela closed her eyes and the awareness of being alive overwhelmed her; every time, when she'd had one of these dreams, it was like this. Almost as if she needed an everlasting reminder of her incredible luck.

A reminder not to forget how quickly everything could be over.

A reminder not to take life for granted.

A reminder…


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Loren was as grumpy as he could be in this morning. The first thing he had seen when he had come downstairs to his store was the broken windowpane, and he immediately thought of a burglary. But there was nothing missing, and later Daniel had told him that a drunk from the saloon, on his search for the way home, had stumbled past Loren's store and had fallen into the pane. Daniel had taken the man to jail as a precaution; firstly to ensure that he wouldn't damage anything else in town, and secondly because he thought it would be a good idea for Michaela to take a look at the cut he had sustained as a result of his fall.

"And who's gonna pay me for the pane?" Loren grumbled.

"That man of course", Daniel answered in amusement, "don't worry, he doesn't look as if he couldn't bear it."

"That's not the point", Loren stubbornly insisted, determined not to let himself be calmed down, "I got all the trouble, have to order a new pane and fit it. And until it finally arrives I can do nothing but hope that nobody breaks in." Daniel tried to suppress a grin.

"If somebody breaks in now, you at least have the comfort that the pane was already broken anyway." Jake Slicker had entered the store with his wife Teresa. She nudged him in the side admonishingly and then turned around to do her shopping and to hide her smile.

Loren however only muttered unintelligibly to himself, since he had apparently given up trying to find understanding from others of his annoyance.

Jake poured himself a cup of coffee without asking and started to read the Gazette, which he had brought along.

Daniel, who thought he had done his duty to Loren, turned to the door and was about to go, when his gaze was suddenly captured.

It rested on a petite person, who crossed the bridge at this very moment and headed for the clinic. It was a young woman with black shoulder-length hair that played around her face loosely and in big curls. She was wearing a pantskirt, boots and a rough jacket and she was carrying a kind of bag in her hand.

All of a sudden Daniel was in a great hurry. Without a goodbye he left the store and tried to get to the woman before she reached the door of the clinic.

"Wenona!"

He quickened his pace and became slightly short of breath, for a different reason however.

She turned around to him and looked at him in a kind and expecting way, and as always when he looked into her incredible eyes he was left speechless.

"Umm … I umm …well…tonight, there was a man,… umm …an injured I mean, …it's nothing bad, but … well, umm ...maybe you could …ummm …he is in jail and Dr. Mike isn't here yet."

Somehow Wenona understood what he wanted to tell her and she smiled.

"You're mistaken, Dr. Mike is already here. She came very early in the morning. She just took Flash to Robert E., because the hooves need to be checked. I'll call her."

Wenona knocked on the door of the examination-room and a few moments later Michaela appeared. Daniel explained the matter to her, in a less complicated and confusing way than he did to Wenona, and Michaela accompanied him to the jail immediately.

Wenona remained in front of the clinic for a while and followed them with her gaze. Daniel was always so kind to her, and he was a really good and respectable man.

Her gaze slipped over to the Gold Nugget, where everything was still quiet at this time of day.

Sometimes she caught herself imagining how it could have been. But she had herself so much under control that she could manage to suppress these thoughts almost immediately. She was even able to meet him without aching. But after all she had lifelong practice in suppressing pain. And here it was so much easier for her, because she had found a home, which consoled her for everything. They had accepted her in this town, just like Dr. Mike had promised. A dream had come true for her. She had no right to complain or even to be unhappy no matter what about.

She turned around and pushed the door of the clinic open. It was here that she lived now. And she did what she could do best: she helped Dr. Mike with her patients.

Since Colleen wasn't there anymore, Michaela hadn't had anybody who was able to help her out in a professional way. Wenona was, and more: she knew hundreds of medicinal herbs. Her acquirement sometimes even put Cloud Dancing's in the shade. Her mother, a healer of the Lakota-Indians, must have had unbelievable skills, which she passed on to her daughter.

Wenona laid the bag with the freshly collected herbs on the examination table temporarily and took different receptacles from the cupboard together with a mortar and a bowl. Just as she was about to pick up the bag to process them in her room, she heard a noise at the door that was still open. And then, standing in front of her, there was the man, for whom she had nearly died a few months ago.


	3. Chapter 3

_3._

_He couldn't believe it when he saw, that she was still breathing, felt, that her heart was still beating. She wasn't dead. But if she didn't get help quickly, she possibly would be very soon. Michaela was already running towards them and threw herself onto the ground next to the injured woman. She felt her pulse and carefully turned her onto her side to examine the gunshot wound on her back. There was only one, although Warner had fired a second shot at her, but obviously he had missed her while he was passing, and had hit the huge men's jacket that she was wearing, instead of her small body._

_Michaela noticed that the bleeding wasn't profuse and that the bullet had apparently been stopped by a rib, so it hadn't caused further damage._

_She made a pressure bandage out of the material of her underskirt as quickly as possible, and then they immediately took off back towards Colorado Springs._

_He had taken Wenona with him on his horse and held her tight in his arms. The way seemed to be endless to him. He checked constantly, that she was still breathing. And only when she was lying in a bed at the clinic, after Michaela had successfully taken the bullet out of her had he gradually started to relax._

_He didn't even think of allowing his own injuries to be treated. Michaela finally had to point out to him that Wenona would probably find it shocking, if he remained at her bedside like he was: bloodstained, dirty and in tattered clothes. He then quickly ran over to the saloon to have a wash and to change his clothes. After that he immediately returned to the clinic and stayed there the whole night. Eventually he fell asleep in his armchair and when he woke up, he looked into a pair of big, almost black eyes. She wordlessly reached out her hand to him, and he took it in his. It was a brief moment of happiness. Everything could have been good, if only he wasn't the one who he just was._

_She didn't even have to take a step outside to see the saloon and the whores who waited for men. She had caught surprised remarks about the fact that he could be so kind to an Indian woman, as the old Indian-hater that he actually was. He didn't seek excuses, neither for his attitude towards the Indians in general nor for the fact that he had whores working for him, and that he had slept with them, whenever he had wanted to._

_He didn't cherish the hope that her feelings for him would be strong enough to overlook all this. He wasn't even aware, whether he had wanted it. What then?_

_A serious relationship with a woman was something that he had never considered very desirable._

_In that cabin in the forest he never thought about what their future together could have looked like. He didn't seem to have very much future ahead then and so it was possible for him to develop and allow these strong feelings for her unhindered; after all there was nothing else. Feelings without consequences and without responsibility, that was perfect for him._

_But now everything was different… To know that she was alive and in safety was somehow enough for him. His feelings hadn't become weaker, but he didn't know what to do with them. And when she relieved him of any decision, as she made it clear to him, that he embodied everything with which she never could live, he even found that it made it easier._

_And still he couldn't explain the emptiness, which filled his heart, to himself, and still he couldn't turn away his eyes when she passed by, could never stop thinking of her._

_And it made him sick to see Daniel Simon staring at her, smiling at her in that winning manner and how she reacted to his open kindness. There was no bigger contrast between two people than between Daniel and himself._

_Sully apparently saw a chance to get his best friend happily married after all, since he made every effort to support Daniel in this case._

_Unlike Michaela. She seemed to be the only one who was surprised and sometimes, so he thought, even disappointed about him and Wenona nipping their relationship in the bud. She often looked at him laterally, as if she urgently wanted to get something off her chest, to have a typical Michaela-conversation, but every time he just pretended not to notice it, which was a bit strenuous in the long run though._

_Michaela had always had this way of poking her nose into things which were not her business_, _but up until their abduction together she had made an exception as far as he was concerned. But this experience had created something of a connection between them and all of a sudden this restraint of hers wasn't valid anymore. It was as if he had suddenly gained a big sister and he didn't know if he liked that._

_He also didn't know how things would go on; he didn't know if Wenona still cared for him, actually he didn't know so much. But for the first time in his life he really became aware of this fact, as he thought about these things for the first time too. And no matter how much he was determined not to change anything in his life, he still had to admit that some things had already changed. That she had changed them…_


	4. Chapter 4

4.

"What are you doing here?" Wenona asked in surprise, since it wasn't the sort of time Hank Lawson was usually astir. He cleared his throat, a little embarrassed, before he answered: "Umm…I got…I got some problems with my sleep, a kind of sleep disturbance."

Wenona raised her eyebrows.

"And I thought, maybe Michaela had something for it… or you, maybe you know some kind of remedy."

She kept looking at him sceptically and he tried to return her gaze as innocently as possible.

Of course he had no sleep disturbances, he never had sleep disturbances, not even in that damned cabin back then had he had any. He just constantly sought for new reasons to visit the clinic, and by sheer coincidence he always came at that very time just when Michaela wasn't there.

Wenona had seen through him long ago and he knew that she had. But she didn't say anything about it and never seemed to be annoyed, and so he took it as a secret sign that she was actually glad when he came.

"Of course I know a remedy, you know that very well, don't you?" she finally said, shaking her head, "several even. Which problems do you have then?"

Hank, however, hadn't thought very hard yet about exactly what kind of problems he could have.

"Umm…well… I can't get to sleep…", he started draggingly with the description of his symptoms, "and I wake up over and over again, constantly so to speak."

"You can't get to sleep and wake up constantly!" Wenona repeated without batting an eyelid. Hank was too distracted by her pretty face to pay attention to what she really said.

"That's it", he confirmed her summary.

"Well, I'm afraid, there are no remedies for that", she stated.

"No?"

"No. Imaginary or fictitious illnesses can't be healed. You will have to live with it." And before he could object at all she laughed at him, and as always when he saw her laughing, he melted away.

"Sorry ", he said with a roguish grin.

"It's okay. To get up that early sure was already punishment enough for you. By the way, what about that splinter in your hand?"

She alluded to the day before, when Hank had come over, his face twisted with pain - Michaela coincidentally was at Grace's at that time – and said, he must have just got a splinter. But not even with Michaela's lens was she able to make anything out. It sure would stick very deep inside, Hank had explained, then moaned very convincingly and enjoyed the touch while she examined his hand. But when she informed him that in this case Michaela would have to cut open his hand to take out the splinter, he said goodbye pretty quickly. He wouldn't let himself be cut open on principle, he'd rather stand the pain.

"Oh, the splinter, well, I can handle it. I had to bear worse before", he declared bravely. Wenona nodded her head: "Yeah, that mosquito bite, for example, that was itching so terribly that it nearly drove you crazy."

"Yeah, that was really…bad", Hank confirmed, but couldn't suppress a grin anymore.

Wenona looked at him and found him so endearing again in this moment, that she wished everything was different.

She briefly smiled and then forced herself to turn her gaze away.

From outside they could hear Michaela's voice. Hank turned around and saw her approaching together with Daniel and a man with a bloody arm.

"Hank!" Michaela said, surprised, when she walked through the door, "you really got up early today."

"He had sleep disturbances", Wenona answered with a mock serious expression, while she quickly cleared the examination table. Hank stepped aside when Daniel entered the room with the injured man.

"Well, I'll go then", he said and noticed, annoyed, that Daniel, as soon as he had helped the man onto the table, cast furtive glances at Wenona.

"Try camomile tea", Michaela suggested. Hank looked at her fairly astounded, and once again he established in slight amusement how wonderful naive Michaela could sometimes be.

"Yeah, I'm gonna do that", he said, making an effort at seriousness, and then he left the clinic.

"Do you need me, Dr. Mike?" Wenona asked the woman doctor who was about to clean the deep cut in the man's arm, before she could stitch him up.

"No, thank you, Wenona", Michaela replied and was already completely focused on her work. The man on the table raised his head and scrutinized the young Half-Indian woman with an extremely interested look. But she didn't pay great attention to him, since she had experienced it very often that people stared at her, and she never could tell if the reason for that was her looks, her origin or her entire appearance, which differed a lot from other women.

She took her bag with the herbs as well as the receptacles and the instruments she needed, and left. As she walked through the door, two pairs of eyes followed her.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Sully looked at the telegram with a wrinkled brow. He had read it at least three times already since Horace had brought it. Now he sat at Grace's at a table and waited for Michaela and for a flash of inspiration that could tell him how he should manage to prevent the announced visitor from coming.

In the meantime Katie scurried eagerly behind Grace who patiently found new small jobs for her all the time and enjoyed it immensely to watch the little girl generously distributing napkins and decorating the flowers on the tables in a new way.

Preston, who was equipped with a whole pile of napkins and was obviously not very amused about it, since he was sitting together with two very important looking gentlemen, certainly some business relations, threw impatient looks towards the father of the child, but Sully perceived neither Preston nor the activity of his little daughter.

"May I?" Jake grabbed the mass of napkins from Preston's table in passing, beckoned Katie and suggested to her to sit down somewhere and to fold them all nice and neat again. Katie started her new work with great zeal.

Jake strolled over to Sully.

"You ain't looking that good somehow**", **he bluntly started the conversation, "maybe you should think of a haircut after all." Sully just grinned, but didn't reply. It was always difficult for him to talk about trivial stuff if there was something that occupied his mind so much.

"Bad news?" Jake didn't give in and pointed fleetingly at the telegram in Sully's hands.

Sully hesitated to answer; he didn't feel like talking to anybody else but Michaela about that matter at the moment, but after all Jake had been with him back then. So maybe it wasn't that bad to hear his opinion.

"This is a telegram from Marshal Reeves from Denver."

Jake raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked at Sully questioningly. And the latter continued: "He talked to Melissa St. Claire again, and since her abductors are both dead and she doesn't have to be scared of them, she made an in-depth testimony." Sully briefly fell into a meaningful silence, but Jake didn't say anything and just waited, although he foresaw the direction the whole thing would take.

"She mentioned that there were three abductors, and Marshal Reeves has concluded right away, that there must be one who is still free. He wants to come here within the next few days and question Michaela and Hank."

"Darn!" Jake blurted out.

Completely at a loss they sat together. Actually it must have been clear to everybody, that Wenona wouldn't be able to live in Colorado Springs forever without ever being bothered and being confronted with her past, but everyone had pushed the thought of it far away.

When Michaela and Hank had returned home alive, the relief and the joy was so great and so much gratitude, respect and compassion went out to Wenona, that there wasn't even the thought of blaming her in any way, particularly as she had nearly lost her own life in the attempt to save the lives of the other two. Her sad story got around as well as her selfless commitment.

Michaela made sure that Wenona got the life she had promised her, and she hadn't been mistaken about the attitudes of her friends.

But Colorado Springs was no island, and it had only been a matter of time until such a telegram, which announced the difficulties they had successfully suppressed for a time, had arrived.

"We got to tell it to Dr. Mike and Hank", Jake said after a while.

"I'm just waiting for Michaela, but I don't think, it'd be good if Hank got to know it now."

"But the Marshal wants to talk to him and apart from that Wenona is to him…"

Sully gave him a severe look.

"What?"

"Well, you know what."

"No, I don't know what."

Jake opened his eyes wide in indignation.

"Who ran behind that murderer together with you, although he was already finished, just because he wanted to avenge her? Who nearly went crazy, because he thought she was dead? Who sat a whole night at her bedside?"

"And are they together now?" Sully asked persistently.

"That's not Hank's fault."

"Oh, yeah? Whose then?"

"She didn't want him."

"For good reasons."

"You really make it easy for yourself." Jake snorted resentfully.

"No, Hank makes it easy for himself." Sully insisted stubbornly from his point of view even though he knew that Jake wasn't completely wrong.

Of course, it was clear to him that Hank had feelings for Wenona, and she possibly had certain feelings for him too, but this hadn't lead to a relationship between them, and that fact spoke for itself. Furthermore, there was another reason why he vehemently denied deeper feelings between Wenona and Hank, and this reason was named Daniel. Sully had long recognized that his best friend had, practically from the beginning given Wenona the eye, and he definitely supported him in his efforts. For one thing because he would have been glad for him, if he finally was happy with a woman, but for another because the sting, that Daniel, at least once, had been fallen for Michaela, still stuck deep, and he wanted to get rid of it for good.

Michaela however saw it completely differently. She was deeply convinced that Wenona and Hank belonged together. "You were not there, Sully", she always used to say, "you didn't see them."

It was a rarity that he and Michaela had different opinions and it irritated him this time especially.

"You should be glad, if Daniel was to find his happiness", he said and Michaela thought she heard a slight undertone.

"I would be glad for him", she assured him quietly, "but only with a woman, who doesn't already love another man." And while saying this, she gave him a deep look into his eyes.

"She doesn't want anything from Hank," Sully maintained stubbornly again and again.

"Possibly; but then she doesn't want anything from anybody else, believe me."

As if his intense thoughts had lured two of the protagonists of them, Sully saw, as he turned his head away from Jake in annoyance, that Michaela and Hank were just coming to the café. They didn't come together, but, like the most natural thing in the world, they headed for the table where Sully and Jake were sitting.

"Hey, what's eating you?" Hank asked straight out, when he saw the faces of the two men. Michaela paid close attention to Sully, while Grace brought some coffee, followed by Katie, who wanted to give them her first newly folded napkins. After everybody at the table had got one, Sully took his daughter on his lap and handed Michaela the telegram. When she had read it, she let out a deep and helpless sigh. And after a while, in which she had kept staring at the piece of paper, as if it might reveal something that could take away the worry which was written in her face now, she felt Hank's eyes resting on her. Wordlessly she held out the telegram to him.

He read it, went pale, propped up his head in both hands and then looked at Michaela again.

The question remained unspoken. What should they do now?


	6. Chapter 6

_6._

_She was always so pretty that all men drooled after her._

_So young… But she was reserved for the boy, well, maybe Karl was allowed to get at her too, but his wife sure wouldn't have tolerated that. Besides, she was probably supposed to keep a little bit of her strength for the housework._

_But she was so sweet, completely delicate and her skin wasn't as dark as was the real redskins, but her eyes were just as black and so was her hair, but so curly, beautiful. Once, however, so he could remember, they had cut her hair for some reason. From that moment she had never worn it longer than shoulder-length. Too bad, he had always thought; it had been so beautiful before. But it still was when it was shorter._

_Sometimes he had dreamt of her and he had been afraid of muttering her name in his sleep. It sounded like music…Wenona…like longing._

_Noni, they called her, and he could have sworn that she hated it, for her look had something like… it was probably the Indian in her; there was something shifty that always told him one had to be careful with her. He wouldn't have been careful, although he never had to be, since she never paid attention to him. _

_Whenever he hung around with Karl, she took to her heels, as with all of his buddies. Scarcely looked at him. And when she met him on the street, she looked past him, maybe didn't even recognize him._

_Like earlier on…_

_How did he recognize her first at the doctor? By her Indian beauty, by her name or by the way she'd looked past him once again._

_It was years ago, when he had met her the last time; it was when Warner had appeared and had taken Cass and the sweetie with him. Since this time nobody had ever seen any one of the three again. Until, three months ago, Karl read the news about the death of his son and his brother in a newspaper. He recognized them by the sketches which were present. In addition, people had found out at least their given names. They had supposedly committed some crime and had been shot while doing so. He had no idea what that was about, but there was no talk of her._

_Karl and his wife were of the opinion that Warner had finished her off a long time ago or maybe even Cass in one his blazes of anger. Obviously they were mistaken. What would they have to say about the fact that their foster daughter lived hale and hearty in this tank town? Maybe they would want to visit her. Or at least Karl. Maybe he would take him along; and maybe then he would get the opportunity he had never had back then. Wenona…_

_He still had to ride a good way, until he would be at home, until he would be received by his incessantly moaning wife with her incessantly reproachful look. She would ask him, why he didn't arrive one day earlier, what he had done to his arm and what he thought he was doing hanging around in a saloon until late at night, when he was supposed to be at home and taking care for the cattle and the fences early in the morning. He would let it go in one ear and out of the other, would get some shuteye for a few hours and then he would ride over to Karl. He would gratefully say "Yes" to an offered whiskey, sit down with his buddy on the bench in front of the house and eventually he would say: "Listen, you won't believe it, but do you know who I saw down in Colorado Springs? Listen, I'll tell you…_

_And Karl would open his eyes wide at first and then narrow them to small slits._

_And then they would see what happened._

_Maybe he would return to Colorado Springs soon._

_Very soon…_


	7. Chapter 7

7.

She had dreamt it again.

Hank, bound to a tree, and Cass, who went towards him with a knife. She, helplessly in Warner's hands which laced themselves around her arms like vices, forced to look. And as always in her dreams there came no Wenona, who prevented the cruel act in the last second. She just wasn't there. The blood, which ran over Hank's face in floods, was his own and his screams of death and Michaela's screams of horror got louder and louder in her head and drowned out everything.

She didn't hear Sully's voice, which desperately tried to wake her up and in her perception it was Warner who tugged on her shoulder and forced her to watch a human dying, and not her husband making efforts to save her from this horror.

It had never taken so long for Sully to get her awake. And when Michaela finally realized that she was lying safely and securely in her bed at home, that everything, she had just suffered, wasn't reality, it still took a while for her to completely calm down. Hank was alive, Wenona shot Cass, and they had escaped from Warner. Michaela had to make herself aware of this over and over again; and still it had been so real this time, not like a dream, although it had been nothing else.

She had had this dream quite often before, but never at such short intervals. Had that telegram caused this? Had it reopened old wounds? Old? It wasn't that long ago after all. Three months.

Maybe she had only pretended for three months that everything was alright. Had she ever really talked about it? Of course, with Sully, very often even, and everybody else also knew what had happened, what had been going on in that cabin and later in the forest. But did they really know it? Only three people had been there who really knew. And she had never since talked about all of that with Wenona or Hank.

She had told Sully everything that had happened, but had she ever really talked about her emotions? Her fear, her thoughts and, most of all, her feelings in that terrible moment when she had realized what these criminals had intended to do? She could talk about it, but the real horror, which had inundated her, could never be put into words.

For the first time there was something about which she felt herself closer to two other people than to the man whom she loved more than anything.

She remained lying in Sully's arms for a while, and then she got up again like the night before.

"Michaela", Sully said softly and she turned around to him at the door, "it's getting worse, right?" She pondered for a moment, then she sat down next tohim on the edge of the bed once more.

"I don't know", she said thoughtfully, "no, actually I don't think so. I mean, during the day I'm fine." She looked at him openly. He thought of the time after the attempt on her life, she knew that.

"Only the dreams seem to come more often lately."

"Always the same?" Sully asked. She nodded and tried not to think of what she had seen in her dream.

"I'll go downstairs", she said then and smiled at him in a calming way.

…

The wind was blowing sharply against her, when she opened the front door. The night sky was dark grey with black clouds and had a threatening effect. The sun didn't seem to have a chance against this darkness.

Shivering, Michaela soon closed the door again and leaned against it.

Did the others have these kind of dreams too? Strangely enough, it had never occurred to her that she wasn't the only one who had to digest these events.

Didn't Hank say something about sleep disturbances the day before?

And wasn't Wenona always astir very early?

Why had they never talked about it?

Probably because they just wanted to forget everything. But that wasn't so simple, as that telegram from Marshal Reeves alone had shown.

They hadn't told Wenona about it yet, but they would have to, if they couldn't manage to prevent Marshal Reeves from coming to Colorado Springs. And based on what point could they do this?

On the other hand she had saved their lives after all, so what could he find against her? She had been threatened by those two men, so what could she have done?

They could simply tell the Marshal the truth; after what Sully had told them about him he seemed like a reasonable man.

And a man of the law, an inner low voice said to Michaela, and according to law Wenona had participated in these crimes.

They had believed that with Warner's and Cass deaths everything would have been over, but it wasn't.


	8. Chapter 8

8.

Marshal Reeves had propped his elbows on the table and pressed his folded hands against his mouth. Every attentive observer would have noticed that he fought either with his self-control or with the wish to just turn his back on the present situation and to disappear. But in this room there was no attentive observer, only a man whose eyes were reddened and who paced restlessly backwards and forwards, and a woman who looked with a glassy gaze into the far distance.

Marshal Reeves had long regretted coming here.

Acting on a sudden impulse, he had made a little detour through Manitou on his way to Colorado Springs to inform the Reverend, whose wife had been murdered, about the latest findings of the earlier cases of abduction and to possibly find out a little more.

But this was definitely a mistake.

The man - not exactly very young, a nervous wreck and mentally obviously not himself anymore – had received the news about the solving of the crime against his wife with extremely mixed emotions. On the one hand he had been virtually euphoric about it, but on the other hand it hadn't seemed to gain him real satisfaction to know that the criminals were already dead. He would have appreciated much more to see them on the gallows, and he wrestled with his fate that he hadn't been allowed to witness their decease at close quarters. However when he heard that there was another abductor, who was missing without a trace, a kind of mad excitement grabbed him, and the idea of finding this third man progressed visibly to a mania.

He paced up and down the room incessantly, kneaded his hands and let his eyes wander over the floor, as if he could already see the missing third abductor right there.

The woman was the widow of the abducted woman's brother, who had been murdered at the abduction. Her reaction to the news wasn't really fathomable. She wasn't very old yet, maybe in her mid-thirties, but she made a careworn impression and her face lacked any facial play; it was blank and motionless, even after the Marshal's disclosure.

Marshal Reeves already felt more than uncomfortable in the presence of these two people, but when the Reverend, to top it all, urgently asked him for permission to accompany him to Colorado Springs, the Marshal totally regretted his detour.

He tried in vain to persuade the man away from his intention; he asked him what sense it would make and made it clear to him that it would only rouse his pain again. He promised faithfully to inform him personally of everything that he would be able to find out, but he might as well have been talking to a brick wall. The Reverend wanted to come along and he could hardly forbid him to do it after all.

"Well, if you could tell me then, where I can find a room to stay and sleep tonight, I'd be much obliged." With these words the Marshal got up and was ready to go. The Reverend stopped and stared at him, round-eyed.

"Why can'twe go today? It's still early", he asked without understanding and almost impatiently.

In spite of all the compassion he had for the fate of this man, Marshal Reeves felt a deep displeasure at his behaviour rising within him.

"I have announced my arrival tomorrow and it wouldn't be very polite to descend on these people just like that. Besides, please don't forget that they have been through a lot. In the case that you really want to come with me, I have to strongly advice that you hold yourself back."

It wasn't completely clear to him whether the Reverend had understood him, since he kept looking at him with the same wide open eyes like before.

The woman stood up now, and with a voice which was equally deadpan as everything else about her, said:"Sometimes they rent a room for the night over there at the saloon. For a Marshal they sure will." She turned towards the door. "I'll take you; have to go past there anyway."

The Reverend looked at her irritated. "You want to go already?"

"Of course I'll go, what do you think?"

"But you will come along tomorrow too, won't you?"

The Marshal couldn't believe his ears. Just what had he landed himself with here?

The woman didn't even turn around again, when she tersely said: "If you want." Then she opened the door and went outside. The Marshal followed her. When he wanted to say goodbye, he saw that the Reverend had already started walking around the room again and didn't take a further note of him.


	9. Chapter 9

9.

"Can I talk to you, Hank?"

The barkeeper turned around in astonishment at the sound of her voice. It happened very seldom that Michaela set foot inside the saloon and if she did, there was always a special reason which had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with fun.

Hank raised his eyebrows and looked amusedly down to Michaela, who obviously didn't feel very comfortable at this place.

"Sure. Care for a drink?" Hank grinned and pointed with his hand towards a free table at the window, but Michaela shook her head.

"I'd prefer to go over to Grace's and have a coffee there", she said.

Hank's grin became even broader.

"Even though our last coffee together at Grace's was far from being a great success? I can exactly remember that you stormed away after two minutes."

Michaela couldn't suppress a smile.

"Don't worry, Hank", she retorted, "this time I'll stay. Besides, we won't be alone; Wenona is waiting for us there.

Hank's face became serious all of a sudden. "You haven't told her, have you?" he asked uneasily. She shook her head.

"No, it's about something else. But I'm afraid she has to be told about that telegram too."

Hank frowned and grabbed his jacket in passing. Michaela had led the way with brisk steps.

Outside they ran across Dorothy, who laid the newest issues of the Gazette into the case.

"Dorothy", Michaela called her friend, who turned around to her and was about to give her a friendly smile, but became rather reserved when she saw that Michaela was, so to speak, accompanied by Hank. She still didn't care much for this man, who had given Cloud Dancing a really hard time and who had disdained her for her relationship with this Indian man.

This hadn't been altered by the fact that Hank had entirely thanked Cloud Dancing, as well as everybody else, for his rescue. Nevertheless, she couldn't see that he had changed significantly. And she didn't regret that it was mainly her who had enlightened Wenona about Hank's attitude regarding Indians.

"Didn't you say that you expected Cloud Dancing today?" Michaela asked her.

"Yeah, right", Dorothy replied, deliberately ignoring Hank.

"Could you please ask him to stop by the café? I need to talk to him."

"Of course", said Dorothy and she felt vindicated as she discerned Hank's surprised look with the corner of her eye.

"Thank you", Michaela just said and went on up the lane to the café.

"You never meant that this Indian will come to _us_", said Hank, who had quickened his pace and caught up with her.

Michaela stopped and looked at him, annoyed.

"You never learn anything, do you?" She placed her hands on her hips. "Yes, I meant that Cloud Dancing will come to us. I need his help. Or maybe…_we_. And now you better get yourself under control with what you say, because Wenona is sitting over there, and maybe you might want to remember for a minute that she is Indian too."

"Only half", Hank muttered stubbornly, but after Michaela had given him another angry look, he said "all right, all right" and was quiet then.

Wenona had already seen them and smiled diffidently as they came to her table. While Michaela sat down opposite her, Hank took the chair right next to her. For a few seconds Wenona's heart beat a bit faster, but she soon calmed down again and resisted the inner urge to move further away from him. Instead of this she looked at Michaela expectantly and said: "What did you want to talk about with us?"

Michaela cleared her throat. She didn't know exactly how to start. Somehow she found it quite difficult to talk about such personal things with Hank of all people, who casually leaned back in his chair and watched her with this slightly ironic look as always. But after all, maybe it wasn't as personal as she thought, and she felt that it was important to talk about it.

"Yesterday you said that you had sleep disturbances, Hank, didn't you?" she started hesitantly. Now Hank looked aside, slightly embarrassed, and Wenona smiled in amusement.

"Well, however it may be", Michaela continued nevertheless, "I have some. That means… I have nightmares sometimes, always the same actually, and lately I have it more frequently and", she searched for the right word, "more intensively."

Hank looked at her again, this time seriously and without any irony in his eyes, but he didn't say anything and seemed to feel uncomfortable. Wenona, however, looked deeply into Michaela's eyes and said in a low voice: "It's the same with me." They remained silent for a while, then Michaela turned to Hank.

"Hank?"

His gaze became hard and close. "I got no nightmares, in case you mean that."

Michaela looked at him in disbelief, but this time she didn't insist, but started to tell them about her nightmares. Wenona's eyes became bigger and bigger, and after Michaela had finished, she breathed heavily and her voice trembled slightly as she said: "I dream exactly the same, save that in my dream somebody stops me from taking the gun and holds me back, and I can't do anything to…". Her voice broke off, and she turned her head away.

Hank was still silent, but his inner tension was all too clear. After all it had been him, who had been bound to that tree back then, who had to suffer mortal fear and had desperately tried to keep his composure somehow, although he had felt like screaming for his life and only hadn't done it not to enlarge the humiliation. He remembered that feeling only too well. And he certainly didn't want to talk about it. With nobody.

He felt Michaela's eyes resting on him once more. At any moment she would start going on about it again.

"Hank, I know…"

"I just told you, I got no such dreams", he shouted at her, so that she started in fright.

"What do you wanna hear from me?" he continued in almost unchanged loudness, "that I whine in sleep at night, 'cause I dream that they do scalp me in the end? That the fear from those days still haunts me? But it ain't so, Michaela." He was completely frantic now and couldn't be stopped.

"All right, if you really wanna know it: Yes, I was scared, I was scared like hell, so much that you probably can't imagine. But it's over. Nothing of this haunts me today, if you believe it or not."

In his fury he hadn't noticed that Wenona had put her hand on his arm. He got up and left the café, but Wenona ran after him.

"Hank, wait", she called him and caught up with him in the lane. He stopped and leaned, exhausted, against the wall. When she stood in front of him and looked at him with big, affected eyes in which tears were gleaming, everything was suddenly gone. He gently brushed her hair out of her face and said with a soft and husky voice: "It ain't true that I never dream of that time, but it ain't a nightmare. Sometimes… sometimes I dream of the moment when we kissed."


	10. Chapter 10

_10._

_He had never in his life been as attracted to a woman as to Michaela. To him she was almost unreally perfect: smart, warm-hearted, lively, committed and, on top of everything, so beautiful. He would have given anything to be with her, anything but one thing: his friendship with Sully to whom she was unfortunately married. His feelings had nearly torn him apart and he had fought against them with superhuman strength, knowing that this had to be the only proof of love for her._

_It had taken a real effort of will to come back to Colorado Springs to help Michaela with the search for Sully after months which he had spent banishing her from his memory. But he couldn't have forgiven himself, if he hadn't been there for his friend at that time._

_He hadn't intended to stay; he had just got into a whirl of events which prevented him from leaving the town again. He had to compete against Hank in the election for the sheriff, once again to help Sully, and eventually he had seen the town as his home. He had taken responsibility and had somehow learned to deal with the fact, that he saw the woman, who still meant more to him than any other person in the world, day by day, and knew that he would never have her, even had to forbid himself the slightest thought of it._

_And then, suddenly, everything changed._

_Just as he got over the worst days of his life, when Michaela had been in the hands of the most brutal criminals one could ever imagine, and he even had to suppress his great fear for her, right then a new door seemed to open in his life like a miracle._

_When he saw Wenona for the first time, Hank held her in his arms. He didn't know anything about her; he didn't even see her face clearly, but still he felt something straightaway, he couldn't explain it, it was like magic._

_But when he saw her leaving the clinic for the first time – at this point he had already learned of her story – he knew that the thought of this woman would pursue him into his dreams. It was a pleasant side effect that he gradually forgot Michaela at the same time so that he was able to talk to her in a completely relaxed way and he never again had to have a bad conscience because of Sully._

_The only problem was Hank, and if it had turned out that he and Wenona had been a couple, he would have stopped his own feelings once again; he was good at this after all. But Wenona, no matter what Michaela might have said about their relationship, had dissociated from Hank and Hank had never once lifted a finger to change that. They appeared to him not more than friends, connected by a common terrible memory. And Michaela's opinion sure resulted from sharing this memory. That probably blinded her to the facts: Wenona didn't want a man like Hank, and Hank didn't want to commit himself; if they really loved each other, as Michaela always maintained, these things wouldn't matter. Love wasn't complicated. If you loved somebody, there were no ifs or buts, no conditions, no doubts. Nothing could stop you then, absolutely nothing._

_He had no idea whether there was hope for him, whether he meant something to her, whether she was at all ready to let herself in for something like a relationship, after everything she had gone through. He didn't dare to interpret her kindness and didn't let loose his thoughts too much, because he had painfully experienced how difficult it was to catch hold of them again._

_Only sometimes, very seldom, usually in times when he saw Michaela and Wenona together, he wondered, if she wasn't the welcome substitute for the other woman he couldn't have. But even before this question could really take form, he made it burst in his head like a bubble._

_In his dreams he knew where he wanted to be, but unfortunately he could hardly ever remember them when he woke up…_


	11. Chapter 11

11.

It had taken a while until Hank had forced himself to return to that table in the café. And actually he had only done it because Wenona had taken his hand to gently draw him back again and he hadn't wanted to let her go.

She had a peculiar power over him. She only had to look at him and he opened his soul to her, she just had to take his hand and he would have followed her to the end of the world. But the most peculiar of all was that he felt comfortable with it. Why couldn't he just manage to hold onto her?

When they returned to the table where Michaela was sitting, there was an awkward silence for a few minutes until Michaela eventually began to speak.

"Listen, Hank, I'm sorry if I constrained you; I didn't mean to. Maybe I wasn't really aware of the fact that everything must have even been much worse for you."

"It's all right, Michaela. It was probably bad for every one of us, but you got the need to talk about it and I don't, that's all."

"I don't want to simply talk about it. That's not the point."

"What else?"

"Dreams have a meaning, Hank", Wenona explained, but instantly she remembered what he had entrusted to her just a few minutes before. Embarrassed she turned her eyes away and all of a sudden became aware that she was still holding his hand. She wanted to let go, but he didn't let her. It was his way to answer, to show that he knew perfectly well the meaning of _his_ dreams.

Michaela observed them as she did so often. They loved each other. It was so simple. And so difficult.

Sometimes she wanted to shake Hank; maybe there was just something that was caught in his head, that had to be loosened …or in his heart. How could anybody so persistently refuse just to be happy and to make the one person he loved happy?

Hank felt, once again, Michaela's inquisitorial gaze resting on him, and for the first time in his life he was glad in a way to see Cloud Dancing coming to their table behind her back.

The Indian approached with a friendly expression, and that wasn't altered by Hank's presence.

Wenona's face, however, brightened up. She had an enormous respect and admiration for the medicine man, and whenever she met him, she felt a kind of warmth, which she felt with no other human, as if she had got back a piece of home with him, a piece of herself. Hank would never understand this part of her, she often thought, and that was the reason why everything was just like it was and so it would be forever.

After he had greeted the two women warmly, Cloud Dancing sat down at the head of the table. Hank had condescended to a brief nod of his head, which the Indian returned equally briefly before he turned towards Michaela.

"Dorothy told me that you want to talk to me."

"Yes, Cloud Dancing. Namely because I need your advice. That is to say, _we_ need your advice."

"Not me", Hank contradicted defiantly, "keep me out of that."

Michaela cast him an annoyed look and corrected herself: "All right then: Wenona and I need your advice."

Then maybe it would be best, if we were alone", Cloud Dancing pointed out, without looking at Hank.

"But it concerns him too", Wenona stepped quickly in, "even if he may not think so."

"Would you mind stop talking about me, as if I weren't here", Hank complained.

"Yes, when you've decided, if you _want_ to be here or not", Michaela reprimanded him.

Hank was on the edge of getting up again and going away, but he stayed; whether out of curiosity or just because he wanted to keep sitting next to Wenona, he couldn't have known himself.

He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms in front of his chest which was enough of an answer for Michaela. She didn't pay attention to him any longer and started without further hesitation to tell Cloud Dancing about her dreams, which kept haunting her, and recently even more often and more intense. Wenona spoke about her dreams too, which were quite similar to those of Michaela, except for the fact that the perspective, of course, was different.

Cloud Dancing listened quietly, without interrupting the narrations, and when they were finished he thoughtfully frowned and said: "We Indians believe that things which happen in our dreams are as real as what we call the reality, only that it is a different form of reality."

"Oh yeah? And why am I sitting here then?" Hank asked disdainfully with ironically raised brows.

"Hank!" Michaela got seriously angry now.

"But it's true", he insisted stubbornly.

But Cloud Dancing just smiled indulgently and continued without responding to Hank.

"Dreams tell us either something about the past or about the present or the future. Luckily the past happened differently. But if events of the past are shown in a dream differently from the way they really took place, it can mean that something isn't finished yet or not balanced. That can concern the present or the future. It can be a warning or just a reminder."

"That something isn't finished yet?" Michaela repeated alarmed. Cloud Dancing's answer wasn't in the least what she had expected.

Cloud Dancing only looked at her and waited.

"But couldn't it simply be that…that…" Michaela searched for the right words, "that the fears of that time resurge in our dreams and show the things which we feared then?" She looked at him expectantly.

"This is what happens in these dreams, but the reason why this happens is something else. Dreams contain a message for us, a deeper reality than the one which is present to us when we are awake."

"A deeper reality?" Michaela repeated stunned. "Which reality?"

"As I said, it could mean that something seems to be finished, but is not."

"Does that mean those two bloody bastards come back from their graves and end off what they started?" Hank asked, and it was supposed to sound casual and mocking, but somehow his voice slipped and revealed to everybody, who knew him very well, a feeling of uneasiness.

"Certainly not", Cloud Dancing replied and for the first time he looked at the barkeeper long and directly, "I'm afraid, I can't say anymore about it."

"Why", Wenona suddenly joined in, "why do only Dr. Mike and I have these dreams and Hank doesn't?"

Cloud Dancing pondered and then he said: "We dream what we allow ourselves to dream and we receive only the messages we are prepared to receive. Sometimes, however, dreams are just there to give us comfort."

Hank felt like jumping up and running away. What the heck was he doing here? Listen to the drivel of this Indian. What did he know?

And then he thought of that telegram Sully had received which announced the upcoming visit of the Marshal. It was true, it wasn't over yet. And if he wasn't very much mistaken, Michaela seemed to have the same thought. She looked at him and he knew that she was about to tell Wenona right now. If not now, then when?

"When will these dreams come to an end, Cloud Dancing?" Wenona asked.

"When they won't be needed anymore", the medicine man answered quietly.

Wenona hesitated with her next question: "And what will come at the end of the dreams?"

Cloud Dancing smiled: "Life, Wenona."


	12. Chapter 12

12.

Michaela was sitting in her armchair, and in front of her on the carpet, Katie was playing with Brian, was jumping up and down on him.

Brian repeatedly had to play 'dead man', whom Katie tried to tickle awake. Every time she had accomplished this, and Brian, exploding with laughter, squirmed beneath her little fingers, she burst out into loud cackling little-girl-giggling and looked up to her Ma to make sure that her success received proper attention. Michaela smiled at her every time and savored every single laugh of her children, enjoyed their light-hearted joy for life. And she was filled with gratitude that she was allowed to live to see that. Without Wenona that wouldn't have been the case. Possibly she would have still been alive, but it wouldn't have been a life worth living. She would have never got over it, if it had come true what she dreamed at night. She would have been destroyed.

Sully had told her about that woman in Denver, Melissa St.Claire, who had suffered from this fate and whose life was only a shadow.

Michaela couldn't imagine, what would have become of her and not only of her, of Sully, of the children. The crime would have affected the whole town in the end.

They had tried to suppress everything, to let something good evolve out of all this evil, to give Wenona a home, a life that she had deserved for such a long time.

They had never mentioned exactly how their rescue had been achieved. They had omitted Wenona's part when they had informed the Marshal in Denver about the events. They had thought it was best, easiest. And now… They should have known it.

What had Cloud Dancing said? Something seemed to be finished, but it wasn't. He was right, it wasn't finished. And Wenona was prepared to end it.

They had told her, there, at Grace's Café, that Marshal Reeves was on his way to Colorado Springs and that he had been told about the third abductor, by Melissa St.Claire of all people.

Hank had suggested saying that in their case there had been only two abductors. This third abductor might possibly have been murdered by the two others long before. And then they should stick to their version that Sully and the search party had saved them.

Wenona didn't want that. "Then it will never come to an end, Hank. The dreams won't stop." – "To hell with these dreams", he had answered and with that he had revealed in one single sentence how big his feelings for Wenona were, and how little he understood her Indian way of thinking at the same time. She hadn't gone along with that, but had told Michaela that she wanted the Marshal to hear the truth and that she was willing to turn herself in. That was the moment when Hank stormed out of the café for good.

Michaela sighed as she remembered this, and Sully, who approached to her in this moment, taking her a cup of tea, asked what she was thinking about. She told him everything, while he sat down next to her on the floor and took her hand in his.

"Wenona is very brave", he said, leaned slightly against her legs and playfully shook off Katie, who was of the opinion that another 'dead man' would probably increase the fun. Brian, who sensed that his parents needed a time for a quiet chat in private, took Katie's hand and said that he was going to read a story to her as a reward for awaking him so many times from the dead. "Yeeeaaaaahhhh", the little one cheered enthusiastically, as if it was actually her dearest wish, of which she just couldn't think earlier, and she let her big brother lead her upstairs.

Michaela also now told Sully about Cloud Dancing and what he had said about her dreams.

"'Dreams are a form of reality' he said", Michaela said to Sully and absent-mindedly stroke through his hair "do you believe that?" And without waiting for an answer, she suddenly asked him: "What do you dream about, Sully?"

He had just taken her hand and was about to raise it to his lips, but she drew it back in the same second to settle herself in the chair. He wasn't able to concentrate on her question, since her legs hit restlessly against his back. He turned around and looked at Michaela who was sitting up straight in her chair with a thoughtful wrinkled brow. Her inner agitation was mirrored in her entire posture.

"What I dream about?" Sully asked back and took the place opposite her now.

"I don't know. I don't dream that much or at least I forget it most of the time."

She looked at him unremittingly directly and questioningly. He forgot it? Then his life seemed to be in balance, judging by the words of Cloud Dancing. Or didn't he want to talk about it, like Hank. Were dreams for men something so intimate, that they didn't want to talk about them? She asked him this question and at the mention of Hank Sully's expression darkened.

"Do you even compare me to Hank?" he asked testily.

"But I didn't say that at all" Michaela retorted with consternation.

Sully didn't reply. Of course she didn't say that. He did her wrong, he knew that. She asked him a harmless question and he reacted irritated; he didn't know why himself. He had a strange feeling lately; he suppressed it, for it was something that couldn't be, something that had never been there before. He refused to articulate this thought in his head, but if he had done, he would have had to say that there was something standing between him and Michaela. Nothing huge, nothing that could endanger their marriage in the least, but it was there, piercing, nagging, and he didn't know what it was and how he could get rid of it, he didn't even know if she noticed it too.

He went to her, knelt down beside her and took her into his arms. She leaned against him and they remained in this embrace for a few seconds, and still it felt strange, dispassionate, nothing more than a sheer 'making-an-effort'. Eventually Michaela got up, smiled at him apologetically and said that she was very tired and had to go to bed. Sully got the message at once. He would wait downstairs until she had fallen asleep.

He sat down in the armchair and let his mind wander. What did he actually dream? Why was he permanently so irritated when it came to Hank? Hadn't they run through the forest behind that criminal side by side back then? And when he had heard, what Hank had done for Michaela, how he behaved, had he not been filled with gratefulness towards him? But he always had the feeling that Michaela didn't tell him everything; not that she would conceal something, but that she excluded him unintentionally, since they didn't share the same experiences. She shared them with Hank and Wenona. And then there was her vehement refusal to accept that the two of them would never become a couple, her refusal to support Daniel in any way.

Sometimes he had the feeling that Michaela lived the life of others much more than her own and lately this characteristic was extremely distinct. It was as if she was living Wenona's life. And Sully didn't find a way to her.

After about an hour he went upstairs. Michaela was lying in the bed and breathed quietly and steadily. She looked so touching when she slept, almost like a young girl. He longed for her. He watched her for a while and then lay down beside her as quietly as possible. Eased by the calming rhythm of her breathing, he fell asleep after a few minutes…

Michaela slept that quietly for several hours, but then the peace came to an abrupt end once more…

She was there again. In the forest, at the oak. Again there was a pair of strong arms holding onto her. Again there was the man with the knife; and again he approached the man who was helplessly tied to the tree. She begged and screamed, and she couldn't prevent it. She heard the screams of death of the tortured victim, the laughter of the murderer, saw the blood, and it didn't stop. It just didn't stop.

She writhed in the arms of the other man. She wanted it to stop. Somehow. And then the man with the knife turned around to her. With a disgusting grin. And her screams died away. It wasn't Cass. It was somebody else. Somebody, she had never seen before. He opened up the view to the dying man, and in the moment she saw him, it was as if she was stabbed by thousand knives at the same time and her heart burned. She fell silent for the short moment in which she hoped she would die with him. But then she let it out and she screamed his name, as if she could awake him by the ardour of her desperation: "SULLYYYYYYY"


	13. Chapter 13

_13._

_He didn't know what he was supposed to do; even when she was wide-awake, she just couldn't calm down, not even let him take her into his arms._

_She couldn't explain it to him, couldn't talk to him, touch him, couldn't even look at him. And at the same time there was nothing she wanted more than to feel his nearness. As if two invisible forces pulled her towards him and away from him at the same time._

_He didn't know why she turned her face away from him, why she couldn't stop sobbing this time, why she pushed him away from her. Would everything be repeated now after all? Would it be like it was after the attempt on her life? But why only now? Why after all this time? And why was it so different on this night than the nights before?_

_She couldn't tell him, what she had seen. That it hadn't been Hank this time, but he who had died at that tree right in front of her eyes. She couldn't look into his eyes. It had been so real, more than ever before. Her heart was beating so violently, that she thought it would tear her apart. Why? Why? Why had this dream been so different, so alike yet so different?_

_He didn't know how he was supposed to touch her. She was so strange to him like never before and he was frightened by this thought. She couldn't be strange to him, he loved her, he loved her in every moment of his life and it broke his heart to see her like this. _

_He lifted his hand, which had dropped down when she had pushed him aside. As if he had never touched her, as if her skin was something by which he might get burned, he let his fingertips run over her arm, which she had wrapped around her body._

_She couldn't respond to him, as much as she wanted to. She felt him and couldn't decide whether she wanted to allow his nearness or not._

_He didn't know what he was supposed to do…_

_She couldn't explain to him…_

_Outside there was the sound of the first clap of thunder; the storm that had announced its coming the day before was finally here._

_She turned to him, looked at him. In the brief light of a flash they recognized each other again._

_It's coming nearer, Sully._

_He couldn't hear her, since she formed these words only in her thoughts. She couldn't have explained to him what they meant; they were words, which came across her in the same way as this dream. Unsolicited, but nevertheless clearly._

_Perhaps she would be able to talk to him later, not now._

_She didn't get up as she usually did after these dreams. She didn't go outside. Outside there was the thunderstorm raging…_

_She moved her body slowly closer to his, and just as slowly he dared to put his arms around her._

_Perhaps he could talk to her later. Now he just wanted to hold her._

_Hold me. Just hold me. Hold me…_


	14. Chapter 14

14.

The thunderstorm of the night had cleared the air, but there were still dark clouds in the sky. The town gave a more than uncomfortable impression when the weather was like this. The unpaved streets turned into paths of pure mud, which the residents avoided as far as possible. Everybody hectically intended to carry out their errands as quick as possible and by the quickest and nearest route, or even better, they stayed at home in the first place. Even Grace's Café was deserted. Anybody who paid a visit to Colorado Springs on such a day wouldn't recognize much of the charm the town and its surroundings were able to exude on other days.

But the visitor who arrived this cloudy afternoon wasn't very interested in the impression of the town. The weather exactly fitted Marshal Reeves' mood. He had turned up the collar of his coat and drawn his head deep between his shoulders when he stopped in front of Bray's General Store with a gloomy expression. But it wasn't only the cold air and the slight drizzle which had set in again from which he wanted to protect himself; it rather seemed as if he wanted to shield himself this way from his companions, who stopped their horses now too. Unlike him, however, they didn't dismount. But neither did they look around, like strangers usually did, and they didn't talk to each other. Both of them just sat there, remained silent, and more or less stared into space.

The Marshal hurriedly entered the store though. Loren spotted the star that was pinned on his coat at once, and he knew who he had in front of him. Of course, Jake had informed him about the fact that the Marshal from Denver wanted to come to inquire into the matter of the third abductor. And Loren felt as uneasy about it as everybody else.

That very same morning they had talked about the fact that he would arrive sometime today and the predominant opinion had been to stick to the statement Hank had suggested.

"If you ask me, that's much more believable than what really happened anyway. Who on earth could imagine that a human like Wenona would participate in such crimes?" Loren had said, "and besides, in fact she didn't anyway", he had added. Jake maintained the same position. Dorothy as well. Daniel had remained silent. As a sheriff he could hardly do anything that was virtually against the law, but every fibre in his being was against the thought that Wenona would voluntarily turn herself in to the Marshal, which she was determined to do, as Michaela had emphasized. Matthew, who had also been present at this little gathering at Loren's store and whose knowledge of the law was good enough to utter a substantial opinion, had frankly declared, that Wenona would hardly have a chance for a verdict of not guilty in the case she went on trial. What Michaela and Hank could state to her favour could at best achieve a lighter sentence.

"And that would be?" Jake had asked. Matthew had said he couldn't forecast that exactly, but one had to reckon up to ten years on all accounts.

Ten years…

The Marshal went straight to Loren, who looked towards him with a mixture of insecurity and reluctance.

"Excuse me, Mister…", said the man from Denver, who already instilled considerable respect in Loren in the very first seconds. The same way he had impressed Sully, Jake and Preston back then. His commanding figure coupled with a very self-confident manner, which was without equal, and his way of treating people, which might be not exactly unfriendly but direct and objective, made it impossible to have no respect for him.

"I'm Marshal Reeves from Denver, and I'm looking for a hotel, where I can accommodate my two companions for the time being."

"Companions?" Loren blurted out, taken aback, before he could stop himself.

The Marshal first looked at him in astonishment, but then it dawned on him that this store was probably also the main trading centre for all kinds of rumours and news, as it was in most towns. And the store owner had certainly heard about his upcoming visit long ago. After all Colorado Springs really wasn't that big.

"Well", the Marshal sighed and used the opportunity to utter his displeasure, which he had bottled up so far, about his unwelcome travel companions, "these two people outside. I haven't invited them to come along, but they are extremely interested in my investigations. So, what can I do?"

Loren nodded understandingly, although in fact he didn't understand a single word. Who were these people the marshal had brought along? A funny feeling told him that it wouldn't be a bad idea to try to find out some more details. And so he decided to take the bull by the horns.

"You're here because of Dr. Quinn, right?" he asked without further ado and the Marshal nodded his head: "Yes, because of the Quinn/Lawson abduction case, to be exact. But I'd be obliged if you could tell me now, where I can find a hotel."

Loren pointed down the street to the Gold Nugget: "Right there is the hotel of Hank Lawson and out of town there is another hotel, the 'Chateau' of Preston Lodge. Depends on what you're thinking of."

'Out of town' sounded good, the Marshal thought, but on the other hand he was exactly at the right address with Hank Lawson. While he was thinking about which one would be the better choice, Loren groped his way a little further, and it was of benefit to him that he gave a very curious impression by nature: "May I ask you, what makes these two people outside so interested in this case?"

The Marshal looked at him fleetingly and considered for a brief moment whether he should answer; but he was quite sure that the Reverend and his wife's sister-in-law didn't set great store by their incognito, after all, they could have stayed where they were. And so he answered straight away: "They are relatives of previous victims of these criminals." He gave Loren a brief nod and then left the store.

For a moment Loren stood rooted to the spot. He watched as the Marshal gestured to the two people and as they started to move with their horses towards the saloon. Then he removed his apron, locked up the store and hurried across the street in the direction of Grace's Café. And because he kept an eye on the Marshal while doing this, he suddenly bumped into Horace who had just come out the café and wanted to head back to his telegraph office.

"Oh my God, Horace! Can't you pay attention?" Loren snapped at him angrily and was about to run on when he had an idea.

"Have you seen Dr. Mike?"

Horace, who just picked up his hat from the street, was evidently indignant and said curtly that she very likely might be at the clinic; then he turned his back to Loren and was about to hurry away.

"Horace, wait", Loren ran part-way forward to the corner of the clinic to watch the Marshal inspecting the Gold Nugget from outside at first. Loren motioned to Horace to come nearer.

"I have to talk to Dr. Mike …or at least to Sully. It's important, but I can't go to the clinic right now, that would be too conspicuous. Can you give Dr. Mike a message? Tell her that the Marshal is here, … in company."

Horace understood practically none of this, only the word 'Marshal', but that was sufficient for him to see that it was about something important and Loren's nervousness was great enough to underline this.

"Wait here!" he said tersely to Loren, went to the clinic and knocked. After a few seconds Michaela appeared in the frame of the door. They had a few words with each other and then Horace came back.

"Dr. Mike has a patient at the moment, but she said Sully must be with Daniel right now."

Loren turned on his heels and hastened to the sheriff's office.

Sully and Daniel were just sitting at the desk, bent over a few maps.

"Sully", Loren didn't care about interrupting the two of them rudely, "come along, quick."


	15. Chapter 15

15.

Michaela was slightly puzzled and worried after Horace had gone. The Marshal in company? What could that mean? And why did Loren have to talk to her so urgently? She had to find out as soon as she was finished with this patient.

It was the man whose cut arm she had stitched up two days before. He wasn't a local man, but since he was on his way through Colorado Springs again – to a cattle auction in Soda Springs, as he had explained – he had decided to go and see her once more, so that she could examine his arm.

The wounds had healed very well as she saw, but he said he had to wrestle with so much pain that he hardly got a wink of sleep at night. Furthermore he had difficulty in moving his fingers.

"That is not unusual", Michaela reassured him, "the muscles just need a little bit of time to heal; then the mobility of your fingers will certainly come back. And I will give you something for the pain."

"That's very kind of you, Doc", the man politely said, but while she was going to the cupboard, she had the feeling he was staring at her from behind, in a way she didn't like at all. She turned around quickly, but the man had directed his eyes towards the window.

She filled a small bottle with a bit of powder which Wenona had produced, a light painkiller for him, with an additional calming effect. Michaela had no idea what it was, because Wenona still didn't tell her her secrets, but since she had given it once to Katie, after the little one – in her overzealousness to help - had burned her hand on Grace's stove, Michaela was convinced of this remedy. Within a short time Katie had stopped wailing and had even fallen asleep in her mother's arms.

Michaela handed the man the small bottle and hoped he would go now, on the one hand because she wanted to find out what Loren had meant and on the other hand because she felt rather uncomfortable in this man's presence, although he gave her no reason for that. On the contrary, he was very polite. Polite in a dirty way, came to Michaela's mind and she was surprised herself at this thought.

The man took the bottle, looked at it and asked: "What's that?"

"Oh, this is a painkiller", Michaela explained. "You dissolve it in some water. One glass of it once a day should be sufficient. I put enough in for four days."

"Did you produce that yourself?" the man asked and gave Michaela a look that was supposed to express interest, but there was something strangely lurking about it.

Michaela declared truthfully that she hadn't produced the powder herself. That was all.

Obviously he wasn't very satisfied with this answer, even though he tried to remain friendly; but his eyes betrayed him. His big greedy pupils narrowed and Michaela had the impression he wanted to stab her with them.

"But you know what's in it?" he kept asking and tried to make believe that he was more interested in the content of the remedy than he was in its producer.

"To be honest", Michaela said with a smile and looked, unimpressed, into his face at the same time, "I don't know. But I do know that it is a very effective remedy and absolutely safe."

"Oh yeah?" the man replied, "Shouldn't a doctor know what he gives his patients?"

"Mr. …, excuse me, what is your name again?"

He hesitated briefly and said then: "Madsen".

"Mr. Madsen", Michaela explained quietly, "you are certainly right. But a lot of things in medicine are based on trust; the trust a patient shows for his doctor for example. You've had so much trust in me that you even came to me again, although you certainly could have consulted any other doctor on your way. Believe me, I don't give anything to my patients of which I'm not convinced."

Before the man, who called himself Madsen, could answer, Michaela went to her desk and started to write the bill.

"That'll be two dollars then", she held the paper on which she had listed her services out to him.

The man got up from the examination table, pulled on his shirt and his jacket again, took some coins out of his pocket and put them in front of Michaela on the desk. She smiled at him once more, and then he left.

When he had closed the door behind him, she sighed with relief. She cast a look out of the window to see where he would go. She assumed, to the saloon, but he mounted his horse and obviously rode away.

She grabbed her bag and coat and was about to walk out of the door when Sully came to meet her and gently pushed her back.

"Sully?" she asked taken aback, "What's going on? Loren wanted to talk to me."

"I know, I met him", Sully said.

"Listen. The Marshal has brought along two people. That's to say, Loren said they had rather forced themselves on him. Anyway, the Marshal told Loren they were relatives of previous victims. I took a look at them. It's not Melissa St. Claire or her husband. Actually it can only be that Reverend from Manitou and maybe the sister-in-law of his wife."

Michaela listened to this, aghast. Thoughts immediately rushed through her mind. What were these people doing here? What would they do, if they found out that Wenona was present at these crimes, that she was present when Warner and Cass had killed and scalped the Reverend's wife, when they had cut the throat of her brother? Would they want to listen to Wenona even just for one second? And what would the Marshal do? Wenona had no chance of being judged fairly within this scenario, no matter what Michaela and Hank would state for her benefit.

She mustn't turn herself in. Not now.


	16. Chapter 16

16.

Marshal Reeves entered the saloon after he had obtained an impression from outside. He turned his gaze briefly to his two companions who were still sitting on their horses with the same faces as if they were two very strange dolls; then he went inside.

The saloon wasn't that crowded at this time of day; the air wasn't as heavy with smoke as it was in the evenings, the noise not as loud and the amount of alcohol was still limited.

At one side of the place one could obviously rent rooms, while on the opposite side was the bar. The Marshal wasn't surprised about the not exactly properly dressed ladies, one of whom already scrutinized him with unambiguous looks at the entrance, while another of them was sitting on the lap of a man at a table, and a third one was just coming, accompanied by another man, from one of the back rooms, her hair poorly pinned up. The man gave her a clap on the bottom as a goodbye and she floated towards the bar at once with swinging hips.

Well, the Marshal thought, not different to any other saloon; though the combination with a real hotel certainly was a bit unusual. Actually he doubted that this was the right place for the Reverend and his wife's sister-in-law but after all – he didn't know how many times he had thought this already – after all they really could have stayed at home.

At the bar he suddenly noticed a man he already knew. He had forgotten his name, but he had been with Mr. Sully at his office in Denver.

Opposite this man, behind the bar, there was a tall man with long, curly, blonde hair and a small cigarillo in the corner of his mouth. On the left side of his forehead, right under the hairline, he had a pretty long scar which looked quite fresh. Marshal Reeves stopped short for a moment. So this had to be Hank Lawson.

The Marshal walked towards the two of them. Hank's face became closed at the sight of the star on the Marshal's coat however Jake greeted the man immediately and in a very friendly manner.

"Marshal Reeves, I'm sure you remember me, Jake Slicker. I'm the mayor of Colorado Springs and I visited you together with Sully and Preston Lodge back then."

Preston Lodge! The name flashed through the Marshal's mind;he had just heard it in connection with the other hotel. The world of Colorado Springs really was small, he thought, amused, and then he said aloud: "Of course, Mr. Slicker, I remember; even if I have to confess that your name slipped my mind at first." Sovereign as always, he didn't need to cover up such little things, and as was his manner, he got straight to the point at once as he turned to Hank: "I assume that you are Mr. Lawson?" Hank nodded his head, quickly took a drag on his cigarillo before he took it out of his mouth, then he held out his hand to Marshal Reeves. "Marshal!"

The Marshal assessed him within a fraction of a second and he immediately realized that he mustn't be fooled by the hard-boiled impression the man tried to give.

"First I want to ask you, if you have any vacancies; I need three rooms to be precise.

Hank just stared at him for a few seconds. Three rooms? Then he became aware that he might be supposed to give an answer to the Marshal.

"Yeah, I guess so, but the reception is over there. I'm afraid you'll have to book in there."

"Alright. Thanks." The Marshal gave him a friendly nod and went to the reception. Hank followed him with his eyes. He watched him as he filled out the booking, then went to the door and beckoned somebody. A few seconds later, a man and a woman entered the saloon, both looking pretty careworn. They had only a little luggage just like the Marshal. He talked briefly to them; the woman nodded but the man didn't seem to agree with what the Marshal had told him. His eyes began to flicker restlessly and he gave a discontented impression; but then they followed the Marshal from the saloon to the part of the building where the hotel rooms were.

Hank threw a worried look to Jake and came from behind the bar. He went over to the reception and searched for the Marshal's booking. The names there wouldn't have told him anything, but beside them was the place where the people came from: Manitou. Hank didn't need a lot of imagination to know who had accompanied the Marshal to Colorado Springs.


	17. Chapter 17

_17._

_She didn't know what she was supposed to do here._

_She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to hear or see anything. She didn't want to talk and least of all she wanted to be reminded. Just what was she doing here?_

_What was HE doing here?_

_He hadn't even loved Mathilda, she had meant nothing to him. He had always just heaped reproaches on her, that she couldn't do this and didn't do that and most of all that she wasn't able to give him children. He had probably only married her to have children, to multiply as it was just proper. And when she couldn't do that, she was nothing more than a millstone round his neck._

_Each and every sermon was meant for her. Every Sunday. She would soil his estimation, he had said to her once. She had always just ducked or at most poured her heart out to her brother. Miles…_

"_If only I could have a marriage like you two", she'd said and Miles had taken her in his arms, his big sister who had practically raised him and he had always wished to be stronger, to be able to protect her from her misery. He couldn't. And neither could he on this one day; maybe he had tried, but in any case he had paid with his life and she had lost her husband._

_Had he noticed that at all?_

_Hardly!_

_He had just been occupied with himself; no, not with Mathilda, with himself. _

_He had agreed at once as they suggested sending a search party. A search party to nowhere. He hadn't even tried to get hold of the money somehow. Of course he hadn't had the sum they had demanded, but at least he could have tried to get it. Somehow._

_Maybe he had considered everything to be idle threats, maybe Miles' corpse hadn't been evidence enough. He had only woken up when he had received her scalp. Woken up to lose his mind._

_At first she had been surprised, had thought that he must have loved his wife after all. Everybody had thought this. He had seemed to her like a ghost, not really recognizable anymore as the one who he used to be, only a walking memory of his former self, desperately condemned to be on earth, bereft of everything that was precious to him._

_But then, bit by bit, she began to see what haunted him. It was his own guilt which he couldn't stand anymore. That was what ate him up inside. Earlier he had never paid very much attention to her, had only tolerated her and Miles as relatives of his wife, but had never really sought contact with them. Miles especially wasn't his cup of tea. But after Mathilda was dead, he hung around with her almost daily, his wife's sister-in-law, and he said that they were the only ones who were left now and that they had to hold together. Hold together against whom? Against the new Reverend, whom they had to get, because he, the old one, wasn't able to carry out his position? Against the 'authorities', as he called them, who were not capable of arresting the murderers of his wife? He never mentioned them as the murderers of Miles. Against whom?_

_And then there had been the news, that both abductors and murderers were dead, caught at another crime. Dead! He wasn't satisfied. For some reason he wasn't satisfied. But when the Marshal had appeared the other day, when he had told him that there was another abductor, an abductor who was probably still alive, then he had been satisfied. She had seen how puzzled the Marshal had been, but after all he didn't know him like she knew him, like she had come to know him within the last month. In the meantime she knew his way of thinking._

_He deeply regretted that the other two were dead. They could well have been stopped from killing another man in the last second, the Marshal had told them. She knew that he didn't mind. He would have preferred it if this man had died and they had caught the criminals alive instead of simply shooting them when he couldn't see it. And he wanted to see; by choice, so she believed, he wanted do it himself, with his own hands. Then his guilt would be expunged. If only he could send one of Mathilda's abductors to hell with his own hands, then he would be redeemed from his sins. And, as it looked like, there was actually one left…_


	18. Chapter 18

18.

Michaela stared towards the saloon where only the tethered horses testified for the unfortunate arrival of the three visitors. Through the open door she saw Hank standing at the reception. She was about to hastily walk over, but Sully held her back.

"We have to think what we're gonna do now", he reminded her.

"That's what I wanted to talk about with Hank right now", was her answer. He felt like somebody had pricked a small pointed needle right into his heart, but he didn't react to it and said instead: "We have to find Wenona first". Michaela nodded her head. "Yes, of course, you're right. She is with Cloud Dancing."

Sully pondered for a minute and then he said: "I'm gonna ask Daniel to ride out and warn her." Now it was Michaela who eyed Sully critically. Actually she had expected him to do that himself, but she couldn't enter into any discussion now; so she nodded reluctantly and walked resolutely and without further hesitation to the saloon.

"Hank?"

He turned around to her.

"Michaela, that really seems to be becoming a habit", he said teasingly, but the mocking irony of his words didn't mirror, as usual, in his eyes this time. Michaela could clearly notice his nervousness.

"The Marshal has arrived, hasn't he? She asked him as innocently as possible. After all they weren't alone in the room and couldn't talk freely.

"Yeah, just now ", Hank replied and clapped the registration-book shut.

"Who did he bring along with him?" Michaela asked, and this way showed him that she was already in the picture.

"People from Manitou", Hank answered and looked at her again, questioningly, at a loss.

"Ah, yes, I thought so", Michaela said, apparently relaxed, and then continued: "By the way, Daniel rode out to Cloud Dancing. In the case that the Marshal wants to talk to us already, now, he can't be there anyway."

She hoped that the important part of her message had reached Hank and he nodded: "Yeah, I understand."

A tall, imposing man came towards them from behind.

"Mr. Lawson?"

"Marshal Reeves?" Hank cleared his throat and then said unusually formally: "This is Dr. Michaela Quinn." Michaela smiled at the Marshal and held out her hand to him.

"I heard that you just arrived, and thought I should drop in briefly."

"That's very kind of you. But may I take it that I have to wait a little while with my questioning?" As always the Marshal took the bull by the horns. What it meant that Michaela only wanted to drop in 'briefly' might have been very clear already, but the Marshal liked to name things.

"Yes, I'm afraid so, I have still to take care of some patients" Michaela explained.

"All right. Would it be more convenient towards the evening? Let's say around half past six?" he looked at both, one after the other. Michaela shrugged and said: "That's fine by me. Hank?" He nodded his head and said that it was all right for him too.

"May I ask you a question, Marshal?" Michaela's voice sounded very factual.

"Sure."

"You are in company, so I've been told."

"Right."

"May I ask in whose company and why?" Michaela looked openly into his eyes.

Marshal Reeves cast a glance to the closed registration-book; of course it was clear to him that Hank had checked it and that Michaela knew where the people came from as well. But why not? After all they were affected and had every right to ask.

He sighed deeply at first and then he told them of his idea to ride via Manitou to possibly gain further findings.

"When Reverend Willoughby heard about the fact that there was a third abductor he couldn't be talked out of coming along and his sister-in-law, or actually it's the wife of his dead brother-in-law, well, he had persuaded her to come along too. Very strange these two. He is obsessed with the idea of tracking down this abductor. He would probably like to wring his neck with his own hands. But don't worry, I will keep him away from you. He won't trouble you."

"Thank you, Marshal", Michaela said and forced herself to a slight smile. Inside, however, she was more churned up than ever. It was worse than they had expected. If Wenona made a confession now, her life would even be in danger.

"Could you tell me where I could drink a good cup of coffee around here?" the Marshal asked and Michaela recommended Grace's Café.

They watched him, as he walked across the street outside and Hank murmured: "Damn."

Jake came over to them. He didn't say anything, but according to his look, he had heard everything. Wordlessly he handed Hank a glass of whiskey. Hank raised it to his lips, but then he dropped his hand and put it aside.

"I'll keep an eye on those two", Jake said and made a movement of his head in direction of the hotel rooms.

"All right, Jake, thank you", Michaela said, but Hank kept staring apathetically towards the street.

They had not even three hours to think about what they wanted to say. Wenona had to be prevented from making a confession, at least for the time being, and the two people from Manitou had to be kept away from everything.

In the meanwhile the man who called himself Madsen had nearly reached the camp where the others were waiting for him…


	19. Chapter 19

19.

Wenona knew that the Marshal would arrive on this day; therefore she had ridden out to Cloud Dancing. She needed him, his evenness and his calmness. She knew very well that she would undoubtedly come before the court in the case that she turned herself in, and Matthew Cooper had only confirmed what she could figure herself: that she would be send to prison for many years.

She had been there, at all those crimes, she hadn't prevented them, she had let them happen. She had even produced the anaesthetics.

If Hank hadn't happened to remind her so much of her father, if he hadn't fit the picture that her mother had painted in her memory forever so much, he would have died as well. If she hadn't felt so much for him, so much that she hadn't been able to bear watching him die, she probably wouldn't have prevented that crime either. And as a punishment for that, so she believed, she now had to watch it night after night. Over and over again she had to see what she had wanted to prevent at all costs, even at the cost of her own life.

It would only stop, if she turned herself in, if she put right what wasn't right yet. And she just couldn't bear it any longer. She would rather go to jail than to watch him die only one more time, even if it was just in a dream.

She talked to Cloud Dancing about this once more. He listened to her with that barely perceptible understanding smile of his, which always gave her a warm feeling. Eventually he asked her, whether she was of the opinion that she belonged in prison. She looked at him with big eyes and thought about it. No agony in prison could equal the agony which Cass and Warner had inflicted on her. She had already been through the hell, in which these two were probably burning now. What was she supposed to still be punished for?

Her answer for Cloud Dancing was: no. But she knew that the law had a different view. And she wanted to do the right thing.

Cloud Dancing nodded in understanding, when she gave him her answer, and then he said: "Dreams, however, always come from deep down inside, Wenona. Our _heart_ knows, what's not all right and our heart gives us these signs. Not laws."

She shook her head and said: But I feel that I have to do it. I don't want to hide. I want to be who I am, with all the consequences."

Cloud Dancing regarded the young woman who led her new life uncompromisingly until the surrender of her identity. But no matter how paradoxical that was, it wasn't his business to point that out to her; _she_ had to find her way. She had to make her own decisions, no matter where they led her.

Wenona had become dear to him like a daughter during the past few months. He sensed in her a kind of purity and innocence which very few people had, despite everything she had experienced. If there was somebody in the world who really deserved to become happy, it was her; but it was as if fate had conspired against her lastingly.

They broke off that subject and turned to other things.

Cloud Dancing could listen to Wenona for hours when she told him about her unusual mixtures. Never before had she talked with anybody about that, except of course with her mother; but now she found out how much pleasure it gave her. She could forget everything then.

Sometime in the late afternoon they were interrupted by the noise of horse hooves. Daniel approached at a gallop and by his facial expression they could without any effort work out that he wasn't on his way with good news.

He swung from the horse, slightly out of breath, gave Cloud Dancing a nod and turned towards Wenona without wasting any more time. He informed her about the arrival of the Marshal as well as of the fact in whose company he had come. Wenona's dark eyes were fixed on him while he was talking, which didn't exactly make it easier for him to deliver his message without stammering again. At first Wenona didn't say a word; finally she turned her gaze away and stared into space.

"Michaela and Sully said you'd better refrain from turning yourself in to the Marshal at the moment, at least as long as these people are with him", Daniel said, unsure whether she listened to him at all, but she reacted immediately.

"What's the difference?" she asked. "I will meet people who lost relatives at the trial, too; relatives, who were murdered by Warner and Cass and whose death I watched." And more to herself she added: "without preventing it."

"You couldn't prevent it, Wenona", Daniel said gently. He almost wanted to step closer towards her, but he felt something like a wall around her which kept him from doing it.

"I could once; maybe I could have done it earlier too."

Cloud Dancing walked towards her and took her hand in his own. "Michaela and Sully sure have good reasons to warn you. Trust them. Think about it." But she shook her head resolutely. "I do trust them, but this has nothing to do with it. No matter who is with the Marshal, I will go to him. And I don't want that Dr. Mike and Hank have to tell a lie."

She looked at the Indian imploringly. "You know why."

She squeezed his hand briefly, then turned around and walked towards her horse.

"Are you coming with me, Daniel?" she asked the Sheriff, who had been standing there undecidedly.

He mounted his horse too and followed her. Cloud Dancing gazed after them even when they had long disappeared behind the next curve.

Wenona had been riding a small distance ahead, and Daniel drove his horse to catch up with her.

"Wait Wenona", he called to her. She just looked at him questioningly.

"Please", he said, and he couldn't think of anything with which he could convince her, "please, think it over once more. Don't turn yourself in."

It was his helpless tone that made her prick her ears, and his painful look that made her stop her horse.

"How can you say that? As a sheriff?" she asked him, looking at him searchingly.

He swallowed and forced himself to resist her gaze.

"Not… not as a sheriff", he said with a husky voice.

"Not as a sheriff?" she repeated softly and all of a sudden she wished she could change everything…everything.

"I'm sorry, Daniel", she said then, and when he heard the deep regret in her warm voice, he knew what she meant.


	20. Chapter 20

20.

Michaela had hardly had any patients; what she had said to the Marshal had been ostensible. She was waiting to hear something from Daniel or Wenona. She paced through the clinic and brooded.

Sully had taken Brian and Katie home in the meantime. He would come back later, since Matthew had offered to take care of the two children.

Loren had been at the clinic in between to inquire about the way things were. Michaela had sent him to the café to find out whether the Marshal had still been there, and if so, when he left the café. She didn't want Wenona to run right into him, before she had the opportunity to talk to her.

Loren had returned soon afterwards and reported that the Marshal had left the café, bought a Gazette at Dorothy's and then walked towards the meadow. Michaela became even more nervous. This was exactly the direction Daniel and Wenona had to come from.

Loren was standing in front of Michaela as if he expected to get a new instruction, but she just thanked him and so he went back to his store.

Reverend Willoughby also seemed to feel like going to have a look around. After he had endured staying in his hotel room for about an hour, he appeared in the saloon, let his gaze briefly wander through the room, and then went out into the street. Jake waited a moment to see whether the woman would appear as well, but when this wasn't the case, he followed the Reverend. The latter just stood in the street for a fairly long time, gazed after the people, sized up the surroundings. But he didn't seem only to _look_ at everything; he seemed to literally soak it up, every sound, every smell. There was something eerie about the way he was standing there, Jake thought. Then, suddenly he started to move. He went towards the bridge and Jake guessed right, that he headed for the church.

In this moment Jake had an idea. Instead of continuing to follow the Reverend, he ran back in the opposite direction towards Loren's store and as he had expected Reverend Johnson was sitting there and let his fingers move over a book. He hadn't mastered Braille perfectly yet, and he read very slowly, but it was an immense pleasure for him and opened worlds to him, worlds he thought had been closed forever. Sometimes Loren watched him with a slightly wistful feeling, since it had been his Marjorie, Michaela's sister, who had drawn the Reverend's attention to this possibility for the first time.

Jake, however, couldn't make allowances for the Reverend's times of study now. He simply took the book from his hand, explained the situation quickly and took him along towards the church.

Reverend Johnson felt a little surprised, but he tried to follow what Jake explained to him and thought he had understood the essential part.

"Okay then", Jake repeated again, "you just have to make him talk, like from Reverend to Reverend."

"Yes, Jake, I got it" Reverend Johnson replied and tried to keep pace with Jake's quick steps without stumbling. "Maybe we should better have ridden, that would have been much faster."

Jake looked at him, puzzled, but then he noticed the sarcastic tone and slowed down at once, muttering a faint "Sorry" under his breath. He looked around and since Reverend Willoughby couldn't be seen anywhere, he rightly assumed that he had gone into the church.

Jake remained outside in front of the door and let the Reverend go inside alone. Then he went back to the saloon, from where he could keep an eye on the church very well.

He had waited for about half an hour, when he saw the Marshal, who had obviously gone for a walk, coming across the meadow. In the same moment the door of the church was opened and Reverend Johnson stepped outside, followed by his former colleague.

The Marshal only threw a short glance there at first, but when he spotted his travelling companion, he stopped and waited. Reverend Johnson walked with the help of his cane and showed no signs of taking the arm of the man next to him, as he often did with friends from the town, when they walked beside him. Jake watched the Marshal approaching them, apparently introducing himself and taking Reverend Johnson's hand, shaking it. Reverend Willoughby seemed to edge himself into the short conversation. He stepped very close to the Marshal, closer than politeness or the consideration of a natural distance allowed. He talked away at him, whereupon the Marshal, who had indignantly turned away, violently shook his head and made a clearly disapproving gesture. Reverend Willoughby gave an angry and disappointed impression and walked ahead to the Gold Nugget. The Marshal walked after him slowly, at Reverend Johnson's side.

"Ah, hello Reverend", Jake called when they were quite near the saloon, "It's good that I should meet you; I want to exchange a few words with you. You sure know what it's about." He laughed a little bit embarrassed and gave the impression that he had to talk about an exciting and pleasant matter with the clergyman. He left it to the Marshal to figure out exactly what this matter could be.

"Oh, of course, Jake" the Reverend played along with Jake's cheerful tone, "with great pleasure."

The Marshal said goodbye and disappeared into the saloon.

"All right, Rev. The coast is clear"

"The Reverend is completely crazy, Jake", Reverend Johnson blurted out at once, "completely."


	21. Chapter 21

21.

Hank took a look at his watch. It was almost six o'clock. He had nervously watched that man, the former Reverend from Manitou, leaving the saloon, but he hadn't been any less nervous when he came back closely followed by the Marshal.

His head was aching, as if the many thoughts which whirled around inside it objected to being locked up there. He didn't know what to do or what Wenona would do. She hadn't appeared yet. He saw Jake and the Reverend outside and their facial expressions were not exactly relaxed.

He leaned his elbows on the bar and propped his aching head in both hands.

In the meantime, Reverend Johnson and Jake had sat down on the bench in front of the clinic and the Reverend had described his encounter at the church in detail closing with the same stunned statement as before:

"This man is really completely obsessed, Jake. If I got all this muddled stuff which he was talking about right, he is of the opinion that he had caused the death of his wife and that it was a sign from God when the Marshal came through Manitou. He sees it as his chance or even his mission to atone what he considers his guilt."

"By finding the third abductor", Jake added, but the Reverend laughed out bitterly.

"I don't think that he will be content with finding", he said.

The door was opened and Michaela came out of the clinic.

"No sign of Wenona?" she asked. Jake shook his head.

"But the Reverend had a nice little talk with his colleague from Manitou and it looks as if Wenona had better not draw any attention to herself", he said with a serious face, and the Reverend added: "This man is obviously insane, and if you ask me, dangerous, Dr. Mike."

Michaela looked at him in dismay; she hadn't obtained an impression of that man so far, since she hadn't seen him herself, but she highly valued the Reverend's opinion. Her first thought was to speak to the Marshal about it, but she dismissed this very quickly, because firstly he must have noticed the mental state of this man himself and secondly because she would only attract unnecessary attention. Seen from the view of the Marshal she had no reason to be worried. No, they had to prevent Wenona from making a confession. But what were they supposed to tell the Marshal then? The version that Hank had suggested in which there had been only two abductors and that these two would have probably killed the third long ago? But this way they would lie to the law. And if it really was like Wenona believed, that all these dreams were connected with it, would they then never come to an end?

Completely at a loss, she sat down next to the Reverend and Jake. It was already past six…

…

Hank tried in vain to keep out the noise in the saloon which gradually increased at this point in time. He stared at a full glass of whiskey in front of him, heard the rumbling and laughing of the men, one of whom had taken the place at the piano and - one of the girls on his lap – plonked the relevant saloon songs. More consciously than usual he registered the pungent mixture of smoke, whiskey and sweat, which filled the air. He felt as now and then one of the girls slipped past him behind the bar, to serve someone or to get a bottle of whiskey for a table. One of them, Haley, grabbed him around the hip while passing. He pushed her arm away indignantly. She cast him a surprised glance, but left him alone at once.

A man stepped up to the bar.

"Are you the boss here, Mister?"

He had a deep voice with a very strange gurgling sound. Something in this voice made Hank look up, and as if somebody had punched him in his face he staggered backwards one step. The man who was standing in front of him wasn't young anymore, almost as tall as Hank, had shoulder length thinning hair and a very short beard. But Hank didn't see all this. He only saw the eyes of the man, pale, grey and cold.

His head pounded and he heard a low voice inside him: _time to go…_

The man grinned at him, irritated, and Hank suddenly had the feeling that somebody was choking him. His heart started to race.

"The...uhm...lady over there told me to turn to you anyway", the man said and pointed to one of the scantily dressed girls who was standing near the entrance. Haley had watched the scene and when Hank still didn't react, she resolutely took a bottle of whiskey and squeezed past him again, deliberately stepping on his foot.

"Oups, I'm so sorry, Hank", she said and gave him an exhorting look while she had her back turned to that man. Hank finally seemed to be woken up. He looked at her angrily and growled: "Can't you watch out?" Then he shoved her gruffly aside. When she went past that man, she said to him: "As you can see, he _is_ our boss." The man looked her up and down, grinning, and when she strolled away his eyes clung to her swaying hips.

Hank got a grip on himself. Whatever he had imagined just couldn't be.

"What do you want?" he asked the man, and his voice couldn't have been icier or more disliking. It didn't matter to him that this guy was a paying customer; he wanted to get rid of him and never see him again.

The man slowly turned to Hank again and said: "A woman, if you don't mind." He laughed out loud briefly, then bent forward conspiratorially and explained: "A woman for the boy over there", he pointed to a young man of about 18 or 19 years, sitting at a table next to another man whom Hank had already seen once. "That's my son. He hasn't done it before, you know? Do you happen to have a whore who you can recommend for such cases?"

Hank kept looking icily at him and just said curtly: "No, I ain't."

The man straightened up again, surprised, and then he laughed: "All right; then I'll look around a little bit myself, if you don't mind."

He went back to the table where the boy and the other man sat. He waved Haley over and told her to pour him a glass of whiskey. As she did it, he let his hands move along her thighs, up and down and finally he grabbed between her legs, winking to his son. The boy laughed sheepishly, and a chill ran down Hank's spine when he heard a kind of chortle in this laugh. The other man, whom Hank in the meantime had recognized as Michaela's patient with the cut arm from the other day, drew Haley on his lap now. She spilled a bit of whiskey as a result and protested slightly annoyed, but this seemed to delight the men even more. "Hey, Sid, this is a little wildcat", the man who had talked to Hank rumbled. "I guess we look around for something tamer for you."

_I've always known that you are a real wildcat._

Hank pressed his hand to his head again to choke the voices from the past.

Haley left the table of the three men, relieved. The older man got up and approached the girl next to the entrance. He seized her with one hand around the waist and pushed up her chin with the other one to take a close look at her. Then he grinned at her, drew her with him to the table and presented her to his son: "So, what about this one?" The girl, Greer, gave the boy named Sid a smile, but her eyes spoke a different language. The three men were disgusting, and if she could have done what she had wanted to do, she would have given them a real hard kick where it hurt most, but then she would probably have had quite a problem, not least with Hank. It was just part of this business. And so she kept smiling as the boy slightly and clumsily pawed her knee and his father showed him how to do it 'the right way'.

Suddenly she felt as somebody took her around her shoulders and drew her gently but firmly away from the table. With big surprised eyes she looked up to Hank, who had pushed himself between her and the three men.

"Hey", the father of the boy protested, "what's going on?"

"You can drink here, but that's all, you got that?" Hank's voice was dead calm, but nevertheless it was more than clear that he would explode at the slightest opportunity.

"Oh yeah?" the man retorted with laughter, not willing to let himself be intimidated in front of his son. "And I thought this was a brothel."

"You thought wrong", Hank said without hesitating.

"Really?" the man laughed again, but this time a lot less amused.

"Yeah", Hank confirmed, and his right hand rested, as if by chance, on his revolver.

"As I said, if you wanna drink something, okay, but you leave the girls alone; and if I see that you touch one of them again, you're in big trouble."

All the bystanders, especially the girls, looked at him, flabbergasted.

The man looked as if he would like to attack Hank, but the icy expression in the barkeeper's eyes left no doubt that he only waited to use his revolver, therefore the man preferred to lower in his seat again and just said scornfully: "Then the brothel must probably have been closed a little while ago."

And Hank answered without batting an eyelid: "Right. About five minutes ago."


	22. Chapter 22

_22._

_Everything was wrong._

_Everything he had done in the past two days was wrong. He knew that. He could count on his sense, the years of experience, his insight into human nature. But he didn't know why it was wrong. Of course, the crazy Reverend, that was obvious. He had regretted that mistake at once. But since then nothing had been as it was supposed to be; he just couldn't lay his finger on it. It was just a feeling that was substantiated by absolutely nothing._

_A file, in which three cases were documented together, was lying beside him on the bed: the St.Claire case was the first, then there was the Willoughby case and last the Quinn/Lawson case, in which it had been managed to rescue the victims and to run down the criminals._

_Not that we managed it, he thought bitterly. Nothing we've done has helped anybody so far._

_But at least he might possibly get the chance to find and arrest the last of the abductors. _

_Melissa St. Claire had taken her time to come out with it, but… well, she had also needed the time to get her confidence back, at least halfway, after what had happened to her. Without Byron Sully's persistence nobody would have ever come to know about it._

_But in the end she had come to his office, accompanied by her husband. She had still looked miserable, but she spoke again. And what she had told him had filled him with astonishment: Her tormentors were dead, the men who had committed these crimes, but there was another one, she had said, a third one, who acted more like a kind of assistant._

_Never before had there been talk of a third abductor. From Colorado Springs had just come the message that the hostages had been freed and that the two abductors had been killed. The two, they said._

_So the file still showed a gap which he thought of closing here. After that he would put it aside for good and forget it forever._

_What a hope!_

_But everything was wrong. His detour via Manitou, his travelling-companions, whom he should have shaken off more firmly, and the reception here in the muddy streets of Colorado Springs. He was used to not always being welcome and sometimes even causing annoyance, but it was different here. There was just something in the air, a strange atmosphere. It wasn't a lack of sensitivity that had meant that he couldn't succeed with Melissa St. Claire, but just the fact that he hadn't had the key to her soul. He certainly had sensitivity; he sensed the slightest vibes and the air here in Colorado Springs was literally filled with these vibes. He just couldn't tell where they came from._

_He would really have liked to get this questioning over with at once. He should have insisted on it. But he had wanted to show consideration._

_The Reverend had asked him again at the church to be allowed to come too. This man clung to him like a leech. He had warned him once again to hold back and to keep out of sight, when he talked to Dr. Quinn and Mr. Lawson. But the longer he was to wait, the greater was the probability that this lunatic would yet interfere._

_But in the meantime it was past six. Maybe he was supposed to see whether the two were possibly ready after all. It wouldn't do any harm to ask. And where would the questioning take place? In the sheriff's office? Apart from the fact that he hadn't met the local sheriff so far, it was probably too much of an unfriendly environment considering that the sheriff's office was the jail as well. Here at the hotel? Too loud, too crowded and too close to the Reverend. But that café from before perhaps wasn't a bad idea. There hadn't been many people and it was apparently possible to be undisturbed, if it was necessary._

_He got up from his bed, smoothed out his vest and put on his coat._

_When he stepped out of his room, the noise of the saloon became strident at once. Two of the girls, who had looked for clients there before, were standing at the end of the corridor and whispered agitatedly. He went past them without paying further attention to what the two of them had to discuss. He doubted that it was anything of his business. When he turned around the corner the cigarette smoke stung his nose. Hank Lawson stood behind the bar again, next to him one of the girls, who gave a somewhat baffled impression and said something, whereupon her boss shrugged, seriously looked at her and answered something. She nodded her head, but didn't seem to be any less baffled then before._

_Through the door he could see Dr. Quinn sitting on the bench with Mr. Slicker and Reverend Johnson. A man stepped to them just now whom he remembered very well: Byron Sully. A wolf was running beside him._

_Well, he thought, why should they wait any longer then? The questioning could begin. _


	23. Chapter 23

23.

"Mr. Lawson?"

Hank looked up as the Marshal walked towards him.

"I think we can begin now. Dr. Quinn doesn't seem to have any more patients, as I can see, and her husband just arrived too. I suggest we go to the café."

There was nothing that Hank could say against it. So he left Haley standing behind the bar, gave Al, the other barkeeper, a sign to take care of everything and followed the Marshal outside.

"Mr. Sully!" the Marshal called, pleased, and walked straight up to Sully with an outstretched hand. "I'm glad to meet you again and above all in such pleasant circumstances." Sully shook his hand and smiled.

"I've met your wife already."

"It's nice to see you too, Marshal Reeves", Sully said, whereas Hank rolled his eyes behind the Marshal's back.

"As I see, Dr. Quinn, you don't have any more patients, so I suggest that we sit together at this nice café and have just a little chat."

The Marshal started to create a light conversational tone; he wanted to make everything as informal and relaxed as possible.

Michaela nodded with a friendly smile and got up. She didn't have the slightest idea what she was actually supposed to say at this 'chat'. If only they had planned it better; but they had hoped that Wenona would come in good time, the distance to Cloud Dancing wasn't that far after all.

"Mr. Sully, you are very welcome to join us of course", the Marshal said and that clearly meant that Reverend Johnson and Jake were _not_ welcome to join them. The Reverend stood up at once, said goodbye and went slowly back to Loren's store. Jake, however, went neither home nor to his barbershop, but over to the saloon.

"Well, then I'm gonna make sure everything's alright", he said to Hank, who nodded his head, knew what Jake meant and replied: "Thank you, Jake."

The café was almost empty. Only Loren and Dorothy were sitting at one table having dinner together. Robert E., who had just finished work, joined them to wait for Grace to close the café and be ready to go home.

The Marshal gave these people a friendly nod and picked a table that was far away from them. Sully, Michaela and Hank followed him.

"Before I forget – not that his presence is absolutely vital – but: where is the sheriff by the way? Marshal Reeves asked at first.

"No idea", Sully answered, "I believe he rode away this afternoon. He got a piece of land away from town; he might be there."

The Marshal seemed to be satisfied with this answer and turned without wasting more time to the actual issue.

"Well, as you could infer from my telegram, Melissa St. Claire decided to make a statement after several weeks; several month actually", he added frowning.

He made a short pause and looked around the circle, looked at Sully's relaxed, Michaela's interested and Hank's indifferent face. A little bit too relaxed, interested and indifferent, flashed through his mind, but he continued:

"Well, and now something strange has arisen from it. According to Melissa St. Claire there were three abductors in her case, whereas in your case - if I got that right - only two men were involved, who were both shot."

Again he waited for a few seconds.

"Is that right?" he asked. Michaela took a deep breath, but Hank said without batting an eyelid: "Yeah, that's right."

Michaela swallowed and tried to give the impression that this was exactly what she was about to say too, although it wasn't easy for her. They made a false statement here; to lie was another story than to simply withhold something.

The Marshal paid close attention to all of them again. In any case he had received a clear answer. Strictly speaking he could get up and go now, since: what else was left to say?

He cleared his throat, drank some coffee and then he said: "Well, it's really strange. We are sure, no, we _know_ that in every case there were the same abductors, but where is the third? Who was still involved in the St. Claire case?"

Michaela briefly looked to Hank, who rubbed his temples again, and then she said to Marshal Reeves: "But you don't expect _us_ to solve this question". Her tone was friendly but she still managed to place a hidden reproach in it. Sully admired her secretly.

The Marshal looked at her, taken aback.

"No, no of course not. Forgive me. But the only chance for me to find anything out is by questioning you. Unfortunately there are no other witnesses anymore."

Sully let his gaze roam over the meadow. He thought he had heard a certain kind of noise. And really: from the edge of the forest two riders were approaching.

"It's all right, Marshal", said Michaela, who hadn't noticed it yet, "you just do your duty and we really appreciate that."

Her last words turned out slightly unsure, since she saw Wenona and Daniel, who were riding across the bridge at that moment. This caused Hank to become attentive too; he raised his head, looked at Michaela and instinctively turned around. Wenona had seen them and had dismounted from her horse. Daniel said something to her, but she ignored him and was coming straight towards them. The Marshal had spotted now, to whom the attention at the table was aimed. Like the others he turned to the two people who were heading towards the café.

"Who's that?" he asked curiously.

"That's Daniel Simon, our sheriff", Sully said and Michaela added: "And the young woman helps me at the clinic. Maybe she needs me." She got up to try to intercept Wenona, but it was too late. She walked with determined steps directly to the table. The Marshal intently gazed towards her.

Hank, however, was seized by a sudden panic. Any moment Wenona would say everything, the Marshal would arrest her, and they would put her on trial. What had Matthew said? 10 years? He couldn't bear that. His head pounded as if it wanted to burst.

Wenona had reached the table, her eyes were fixed on the Marshal; she didn't want to see the faces of the others; she knew what she had to do. She opened her mouth, but before she had the chance to say anything, it happened: Hank suddenly hit both hands against his head, squirmed vehemently groaning and finally broke down, screaming, obviously tortured by terrible pains. He fell to the ground and writhed back and forth, while he held his head and screamed throughout. Everybody jumped up, completely shocked. The others in the café came over too.

"HANK!" Wenona yelled being beside herself and ran to him. Michaela immediately knelt next to him, but it was almost impossible for her to examine him in this state. Suddenly, however, he became still and his body went limp. He had apparently lost consciousness. Michaela bent over him and drew his hands, which still covered his face, away from his eyes to check his pupils. She froze for a moment and a shocked expression replaced the worry in her face.

"Take him to the clinic. Hurry."


	24. Chapter 24

24.

Sully, Robert E. and Daniel had carried Hank as carefully as possible to the clinic and laid him on the examination table. Wenona, streaming with tears, had run beside them, followed by Marshal Reeves and Michaela.

"What's wrong with him, for heaven's sake?" the Marshal had hastily asked, and Michaela had quickly explained that Hank had suffered a severe skull-brain trauma a few years ago, which had put him into a coma for days then, and also the fact that he had taken another hard blow to the head only a few months ago

"I don't know what's wrong with him", Michaela said nervously, "in the worst case it's a sudden brain haemorrhage, but I don't know yet."

Is it possible that such an attack happens so suddenly and such a long time after the actual injury?" the Marshal kept asking.

"I'm afraid we don't know very much about the brain, but: yes, apparently it is possible - for example when people are under a lot of pressure – that even after quite some time such an injury can lead to serious consequences. But, please excuse me now."

She entered the examination room in a hurry and sent everybody, except for Sully and Wenona, outside. Then she closed the door and covered up the windows.

Wenona was standing next to Hank, helpless and desperate, and Sully cast a worried look to Michaela, who stepped to the examination table now and pushed Wenona gently aside. Then she took a deep breath and said calmly but clearly struggling to keep her composure: "Brilliant performance, Hank."

Hank opened his eyes, looked at Michaela and almost imperceptibly twisted the corners of his mouth to a suppressed grin, a bit like a schoolboy who was caught in the end after he had done a successful prank.

"I thought you'd notice it", he said, and while he was sitting up and swinging his long legs from the table, he continued: "But thanks for playing alo…". He stopped in the middle of the sentence as he saw Wenona in front of him, looking at him with wide, reddened and stunned eyes. She shook her head mechanically and in suffering from the shock, as if she couldn't believe what had just happened. Hank was instantly filled with the deepest regret, but at the same time also with a sudden feeling of happiness, since: wasn't her reaction the evidence of how much she still felt for him?

Wenona just speechlessly stared at him for a moment, and when she had found her voice again, she said softly and weakly: "That…that was only…faked?"

"Wenona…", Hank started, but couldn't go on. With all the might she could summon up, she slapped him in his face, twice, before she, uncontrollably sobbing, sank to her knees, and this pain, which erupted from deep out of her soul, hurt him much more than her hand.

Every feeling of happiness had disappeared and there remained only his guilt and the realisation that he had failed once again. In his desire to protect her he had only hurt her. Whatever he touched seemed to break into pieces in the end.

Michaela bent down to Wenona and put her arm around her. She didn't consider it necessary to reprimand Hank, because she could see how deeply shaken he was. Nobody said a word. Michaela held Wenona and let the storm of feelings rage itself out. After a while she calmed down. The tears ebbed and then she just remained sitting on the floor, completely exhausted, Michaela at her side.

She looked up to Hank, who was still sitting on the examination table, and when she saw the reddened print of her hand on his face and his guilty expression, her anger gradually melted away.

"I was scared to death", she said softly, and Hank, who wished he could take her into his arms, said with a husky voice and a tone that somehow didn't sound like him: "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to."

"He only wanted to protect you, Wenona". It was the first time that Sully said anything. Michaela looked at him in astonishment, since she hadn't exactly expected that he would put in a good word for Hank. But when he returned her gaze, it became clear to her that she should have known it. How could Sully not understand Hank? Had he not always done everything to protect Michaela too? And he would always do that, no matter how. And he did it for the same reasons as he apparently now began to recognize in Hank.

"I know", Wenona said, "but it is exactly what I go through every night and I don't want that anymore. I wanted this to come to an end. I don't want to be frightened to fall asleep anymore. I…just don't want anymore."

Michaela gave her a look of concern.

"I understand you", she told the young woman, who was sitting there so despondently and desperately tried to banish the ghosts of the past, which had settled in her dreams.

And Michaela really understood her; since the previous night, since her dream of Sully she could understand her better than ever.

But now the most important thing was to explain to Wenona the actual reason why they were all so interested in preventing her from making a confession at this point in time. She told her about Reverend Willoughby, and that they had waited for her the whole time to warn her, until it was finally too late and Hank was compelled to single-handedly decide what to tell the Marshal.

"Right now we can't do anything else but to keep on with this play. Tomorrow we'll see what we can do. Maybe in the meantime the Marshal will have informed the Reverend that there are no clues here and send him home. We'll see", she said once again and got up.

"Hank, I'm afraid you will have to stay at the clinic overnight, because I don't suppose that you'd prefer to walk hale and hearty past the Marshal. After such a severe attack that would be a bit…unusual." Michaela had slightly raised her eyebrows and gave him an ironic look that absolutely resembled the looks _he_ normally gave _her_.

Of course, Hank hadn't thought about that so far, but he nodded his head.

"Well, then I'm going to find somebody who can help me carry you upstairs", Sully said and gave him a pat on the shoulder, "we can hardly say you went by yourself, or that Michaela and Wenona helped me, right?"

"Don't worry, Sully, the whole world believes you to be capable of doing that on your own" Hank retorted and lay down again.

"Beware, Hank, or we might let you fall on the stairs; then you'd at least have a true reason to stay", Sully warned him and cast a slight grin to Wenona, who had got up from the floor as well.

"Could you two be serious now, please", Michaela admonished. "So, Hank, you'll lay down in a bed upstairs; the Marshal might probably come to look in on you."

"Why should he?" Hank asked uncomprehendingly.

"Maybe, because he is a nice man and such people sometimes do things like that, Hank, you know? But maybe just because he is the Marshal and likes to take a close look at things, so be good now and keep playing your role and be as ill as possible" was her annoyed answer, "best be unconscious, that's the safest."

She moaned. Michaela hated it when she was forced to deceive other people, but she had no choice and it was only for the moment. At least she persuaded herself this.

"By the way, I really got quite a headache", Hank murmured, as if he felt the need to vindicate himself and to put everybody in a lenient mood.

"Oh, really? Well, in that case everything's fine", Michaela said unmoved, "Then our swindle isn't that big after all, is it?" She took some instruments, laid them beside Hank and put on her stethoscope.

"Undo your shirt a bit more" she instructed Hank, "I mean, I have examined you, or haven't I?" He did what she had told him. Sully had the presence of mind to light the lamp, which Michaela always used as a light source for her examinations and surgeries.

"Wenona", Michaela turned to the young woman, who still hadn't completely recovered from her shock, "we'll say, that you'll stay and take care of him. Is that all right?" Wenona nodded. "Good", Michaela said and took a deep breath, before she went to the door to tell the people outside the relieving news that Hank's condition was serious, but obviously not life-threatening. Oh my God, Michaela thought, what am I doing here? Then she opened the door.


	25. Chapter 25

25.

In the meantime half of Colorado Springs had gathered outside. Robert E., Grace, Loren and Dorothy had already seen everything in the café, and a lot of people had heard Hank or had at least seen as he had been carried to the clinic. In the saloon the incident had attracted attention too. Greer, who hadn't left her place at the entrance even after Hank's instructions, had been horrified to witness what had happened outside and she had informed her colleagues, as well as Jake Slicker, at once. All of them waited in front of the clinic now. A lot of customers from the saloon had come outside too, partly because they knew Hank well, partly out of pure curiosity.

The man named Madsen, Sid and his father, who'd shortly before had a rather unfriendly encounter with Hank, also joined the gathering and listened intently to what Sheriff Simon, who was bombarded with questions, had to say. That wasn't very much though. All he could tell them was that Hank had collapsed amid a terrible headache and then hadn't been responsive anymore. Haley mentioned that Hank had behaved strangely all day long.

"He hardly talked at all and was in a bad mood. And right before, he even closed the brothel."

"He did _what_?" Grace asked dumbfounded.

"Yeah, he said the brothel was closed. At first I thought he just wanted to annoy that guy, but then he positively warned us not to accept even one more customer. He really seems to have had problems with his head." Grace stared at her with huge incredulous eyes: "Yeah, it looks like it," she mumbled.

The crowd waited for a statement from Dr. Mike.

Daniel tried to keep a distance after his short explanations. He didn't exactly feel like talking to people. He had to digest a lot.

"If my heart gave me a choice, if I could simply wish to whom my feelings belonged, everything would be so easy. But it isn't like that", Wenona had said, and he knew that she was right. Who would know it better than he? The place in her heart wasn't free anymore, no matter what he had imagined or hoped; and if a last piece of evidence had been necessary, he had received it shortly before by her reaction to Hank's collapse. Wenona was extremely compassionate, but only the deep concern about a beloved person could cause such desperation; Daniel didn't fool himself about that.

The door of the clinic opened and Michaela came out. The Marshal, who had been sitting on the bench in front of the clinic, immediately got up in expectation of the news she had to tell them, but Michaela turned to Jake first, who stood nearest to her, and to Robert E., and asked them to help Sully move Hank to the recovery-room.

"How is Mr. Lawson, Dr. Quinn?" The Marshal asked when the two men had disappeared into the examination room.

"Well", Michaela said, "I can't say anything definite at the moment, but his condition has stabilised fairly well, therefore I'm hopeful that we don't have to expect the worst. Probably it's merely a case of a single, very severe pain attack, but, as I said, the brain is not much explored yet and very often we can only speculate. We have to wait overnight. My assistant Wenona will take care of him." She looked openly into the Marshal's eyes, aware of the fact that she - strictly speaking – hadn't lied to him with a single word.

Marshal Reeves nodded.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to look in on him later",he said as expected. Michaela seemed to ponder and then she said: "All right, Marshal, later. But only for a short moment, please." Then she went back inside again.

The people scattered for the most part, after they had heard the news. Loren went to his store to tell the Reverend about the incident. Grace and Dorothy slowly walked towards the Gazette, and Haley and Greer went back to the saloon.

Nobody paid attention to the three men, who had been standing not far away from Michaela and the Marshal.

"So? What have I told you, Karl?" the man who called himself Madsen grinned. "'My assistant Wenona'…, did you hear that?" Karl nodded grimly and his gaze was so rigidly pointed at the clinic, where he knew his missing foster daughter to be, as if he could see right through the wall. So she wasn't dead. Cass and Warner were dead and she wasn't. Why not? Where was she, when his brother and his son had died, and how had she come here?

"What are you gonna do now, Dad?" asked Sid, his remaining son.

Well, that was the next question. What was he going to do?

"Shall we ask her, if she wants to come home with us?" Sid kept asking naively. Karl looked at him, scornfully, almost disgusted. Sid wasn't like Cass, even if there was a certain external likeness to him. As Karl saw it, Sid was a wimp, whose life he would have exchanged for his brother's any time.

"Yeah", he answered disdainfully, "yeah, maybe we'll ask her." His buddy burst out laughing and said, gasping: "Oh, yes, let's ask her." Sid, feeling unsure, looked from one to the other. He didn't know what was so funny about it.

"Let's go back to the saloon", Karl said, "I'm sure we can find out a lot there, especially as this swine of a barkeeper isn't there." He spat on the ground.

"And tomorrow…tomorrow we'll take care of our sweet, little Noni."


	26. Chapter 26

26.

The room, where Hank was lying, was very familiar to him. It was the same room in which he had woken up from the coma back then. How fitting.

It had been unavoidable that Sully, Jake and Robert E. had really carried him upstairs, as a matter of form. But after they had prudently laid him onto the bed, Hank had opened his eyes and had grinned: "Thanks, I think, I can do the undressing part on my own."

Jake and Robert E. had been thunderstruck and had wavered between relief and anger. Fortunately both did without any long explanations and were content with working things out for themselves. Wenona had followed them, and Hank hastened to remove the grin from his face. But she didn't pay attention to him, just put a jug of water on a chest of drawers and went back downstairs. She heard the babble of voices from outside that gradually subsided. Michaela came in and gave her a searching look.

"The Marshal will look in on Hank in a few minutes", she said to her. "Has he lain down?"

"I think so; in any case he was about to."

"Good."

Jake, Robert E. and Sully came downstairs.

"Such a scoundrel", Robert E. growled between his teeth, and Jake wasn't very pleased either.

Michaela looked at them in embarrassment. "Robert E., Jake…. please… ".

"Don't worry Dr. Mike", Robert E. interrupted her, "nobody will get to know anything from us. But he's still a scoundrel." He wiped away the sweat from his forehead beneath his cap with a short practised movement of his hand, gave Michaela a nod, and left the clinic. Jake just briefly raised his eyebrows and went slowly behind him.

This time he didn't go back to the saloon. The necessity of keeping an eye on the Reverend didn't seem to be that urgent for the moment. He felt drawn to Teresa, who waited for him at home; a feeling that still overwhelmed him. It wasn't like it had been in the past anymore, when he had hung around in the saloon until late at night and then had staggered home to his barber shop, where nobody had waited for him. Today there was somebody. Somebody who greeted him lovingly and to whom he could talk about every thing that had happened during the day. He would have to tell her a lot today, but maybe they wouldn't talk at all…

Jake Slicker smiled softly to himself and rode out of town.

"Maybe you should go upstairs, Wenona", Michaela said, "when the Marshal comes, somebody should be with Hank, otherwise it would look a bit strange."

"All right"; Wenona replied, and her voice revealed that she would rather be in any other place right now.

"You should brew him one of your teas as a punishment", Sully joked, making an effort to cheer her up a little bit. "Didn't he say something about a headache?"

Wenona slightly smiled back and said: "He's to _keep_ it as a punishment." Then she went upstairs.

Michaela let out a deep sigh. Sully went to her and enfolded her in his arms. "Let's go home."

"As soon as the Marshal's been here, Sully." She leaned against him. "I feel so sorry for Wenona."

"I know", Sully said, "I know."

Michaela wrapped her arms around him and clung as close as possible to his body. No, he didn't know, she thought. But she would talk to him. She _had_ to talk to him. It was necessary.

…

Wenona carefully opened the door of the recovery room. Hank was lying in the bed, his over garments were carelessly thrown on a chair; his eyes were closed.

"It's just me", Wenona said as she closed the door.

He opened his eyes and looked at her expectantly.

"The Marshal will probably come in a minute", she said. She took his clothes and put them neatly on a hanger in the wardrobe. She avoided looking at him as far as possible.

"Wenona…" It sounded pleading. She didn't react.

"Are you still mad at me?" he finally asked like a little boy who had played a nasty trick on his mother and was now seriously worried he might have lost her love forever.

Wenona darted an angry glance at him.

"Yes!" she threw backin his face. But when she saw how shocked he was, she turned her gaze away, lowered her head and said softly: "No."

She sat down onto the edge of the bed, resigned, and said without looking at him: "I'm not mad at you. I just want you to understand me. This is not about _you_, Hank, or about _us_. It's only about me and I have to do what I feel and what I think will help me."

Hank had no time for an answer, because they heard Michaela's voice on the stairs. He turned his head slightly to the side on the pillow and closed his eyes. Shortly after this Michaela appeared, followed by Marshal Reeves, who had the typical uneasy expression of a person who entered the sickroom of a seriously ill patient. His steps were cautious and soft, his posture was slightly bowed, and his voice was low as he talked.

"How is he?"

It wasn't clear to whom the question was addressed, but Michaela – instead of an answer – took Hank's wrist and felt his pulse, which was surprisingly fast as she noticed.

"Did he wake up in the meantime?" she asked Wenona, which she negated.

"As it looks, his condition remains stable. I think this is a good sign."

"Thank God", the Marshal said and his sympathy sounded honest.

"Excuse me", he suddenly turned to Wenona, "there was no opportunity to be introduced to each other earlier on. I'm Marshal Reeves." He held out his hand for her to shake. Wenona took it fairly astonished. It didn't happen very often that strangers treated her – who was so obviously descended from Indians - so politely.

"My name is Wenona", she said, "I help Dr. Quinn in her practice."

The Marshal looked at her attentively and it wasn't in the least the kind of look she was used to getting from a lot of men. It was, in spite of all visible interest, very respectful.

"Do you have a particular relationship with him?" he asked hesitantly and quickly added: "Forgive me if I'm indiscreet, but your reaction before was quite emotional."

"We… we're just friends. That's all", Wenona answered and wished the man wouldn't give her such a penetrating look from his deep blue eyes.

"Anyway, I'm very sorry. Maybe the memory of past events hit him harder than one could have assumed. Is that possible, Dr. Quinn?" But abruptly, without waiting for an answer, he asked Wenona again, as if the question had just occurred to him: "By the way, were you already here then?"

In the next moment Hank turned his head with a soft moan to the other side, and Michaela said quickly to the Marshal: "Please, Marshal Reeves, we should really go now. The patient needs his rest."

"Of course, I'm sorry", the Marshal said at once, gave Wenona a brief nod, threw a last glance at Hank and went through the door, which Michaela invitingly held open for him and closed after she had gone outside too.

They heard them both walking downstairs. Then it was quiet again.

Wenona was still sitting on the edge of the bed.

_By the way, were you already here then?_

Hank looked at her laterally. She was sitting there like a helpless little girl who had lost her way. He took her hand, diffidently, with the expectation that she would draw it back, but she didn't. She responded to his touch, even if she didn't look at him while doing so. They remained in this position for a while, without saying a word.

Eventually Wenona turned to him and asked: "Do you still have a headache?" He nodded. She sat nearer to the head of the bed and put her small hand on his forehead. Whether it was just her hand which achieved it, or perhaps her entire nearness after all, he didn't know, but after a short while pleasing warmth spread out in his head and a wave of peace and relaxation washed over him. And finally he fell asleep…


	27. Chapter 27

27.

Michaela and Sully drove the wagon along the familiar roads through the darkness.The full moon, which was watching from the sky, provided a soft light. Michaela looked up to it.

_What if there is a man in the moon?_

He seemed to smile at her, urging, encouraging.

"Sully?"

"Yes?"

"Could you please stop the wagon?"

He looked at her in surprise.

"Please", she repeated, and without another word he made the horses stop.

They stood in the middle of an open area, where not a single tree cast a shadow. The air was clear and cool, but pleasant. Only the noise of a few crickets could be heard around them.

Michaela took a deep breath.

"Could we…" she faltered, breathed deeply once more and then gave him a serious look. "Can I talk to you about last night?"

Sully took her hand. It was on the tip of his tongue, that she knew she could talk to him about anything, but her eyes told him that this would have been the wrong answer. Insensitive and inappropriate, because after all, she hadn't been able to talk about it the previous night. And he? Could he talk about everything? And before he had to give himself the shameful answer, he answered her question instead with a simple but deeply felt: "Yes, Michaela."

A short, grateful smile appeared round her mouth, then she turned her gaze away, and he had the feeling that she was swallowing down tears.

"You know, I have never really known before, what Wenona is going through in these dreams, how dreadful it must be for her. But if you know that, it also becomes clear how terrible it was, what Hank did to her tonight.**"**  
"But he …"Sully began, but Michaela interrupted him: "Yes, I know, he did it with the best of intentions, but still… I can understand her. Since last night."

He could tell by her voice that she was actually crying now. But she averted his gaze. He gently stroked her head, her hair, and he kept holding her hand.

"Tell me about last night", he said with a soft voice.

Michaela nodded and began: "I dreamt again."

"The same dream as always?"

"Yes, the same dream. And yet…not the same. Everything was as always", she hesitated, wanted to avoid speaking the terrible out loud, "everything…happened as always." She faltered again, breathed quickly. Sully didn't interrupt her.

"But then, when the man who …who …had done it turned around, it wasn't Cass. It was a much older man. I didn't know him. I've never seen him." Again she stopped and Sully waited patiently. He felt as she increased the squeeze on his hand as if she tried to get a hold.

"And then …and then … I … I saw … the man at the tree." She sobbed and Sully wrapped his arm around her soothingly.

"It wasn't Hank…, but….but you." And then she threw herself into his arms, uncontrollably crying.

Trembling all over she clung to him like a drowning woman. Sully held her tight.

"Oh my God, Sully", she desperately sobbed, "it was so terrible… it was so terrible". He rocked her back and forth, gently stroked her head and gave her time to weep out her grief. After a while the tears ebbed and she became calmer. At the end of it she lay weakly in his arms.

"What happens here, Sully?" she finally asked faintly. "What happens to us? What does all this mean?"

Sully said nothing at first, but in his head thoughts formed, thoughts which he had tried to suppress for months. The memory of his fear for Michaela and his feelings of …guilt…

"Cloud Dancing said: Something is wrong? But what? What?"

His face darkened. He kept holding onto her, but actually he wanted to run away, to not be confronted with what tortured him. She noticed the tension in his body and looked up at him. "What's the matter with you, Sully?" she asked, worried, and suddenly she was scared, because this was one of those reactions, which were so strange to her and which she couldn't sort out lately.

"Sully?"

The muscles on his brow contracted as if he had some pain, but in the moonlight she saw that his eyes glistened. He didn't look at her, but stared at a point somewhere on the ground.

She raised her hand and stroked his temple, as if she could wipe away the dark thoughts which threatened him.

"Sully."

He grasped her hand and pressed his face into it.

"I know what's wrong, Michaela", he literally choked out, "I left you alone."

"What?" she asked stunned.

"I left you alone", he repeated and this time it didn't sound like an observation, but like a self-accusation.

"I wasn't there in time, I couldn't save you." His voice began to tremble now.

Michaela stared at him in disbelief. This was what had strained him? The whole time? Without her knowing it, without her noticing it.

"Sully, that isn't true", she said, but he just shook his head, let her go, and jumped from the wagon. He took a few steps and then sank to his knees, his face buried in both hands. Michaela climbed down from the wagon as well and went to him. She crouched down beside him.

"Sully", she said tenderly, "it _is_ _not_ true. You didn't leave me alone. You _were_ there. You were with me every second. I wouldn't have survived, if it hadn't been so. Only the thought of you and the children gave me the strength to endure that. When we fled from Warner, that alone let me stand."

"But I would have been too late. If Wenona hadn't have shot Cass, it would have been too late."

"But she did, and it would have been useless if you and the others hadn't appeared. I knew the whole time that you would search for me and that you would find me. Without you nobody would have ever found out what happened to Melissa St. Claire. The others would probably have trusted in the hope that the ransom alone would help. But you didn't, you hit the road and you found us. _You_ saved me, Sully. Wenona saved Hank, but _you_ saved _me. _Believe me, you _were_ there."

Now it was he who fell into her arms, shaken by suppressed sobbing. Her eyes were flooded by tears again.

"I love you so much, Sully", she whispered.

They lay on the cold ground, clung to each other, as if it was their first and their last embrace at the same time. Desperately fighting against the pains of the past, which were now their shared pains and which they would defeat together.


	28. Chapter 28

28.

It was in the middle of the night that Hank woke up. The place on his bed, where Wenona had been sitting, was deserted now. The sheet was cold to his touch, and Hank felt a sudden emptiness that he hadn't known before. The kind of loneliness that people only felt when they were left. The feeling not being complete anymore.

The headache was gone, as if she had just taken it with her.

He turned onto his other side and then he saw her. Her dark silhouette in front of the moonlit window. She was standing there, completely still, and looked outside, perhaps to the street, perhaps to the saloon, perhaps to nowhere. He couldn't see her face and if he could have, it would have been to dark to recognize her expression anyway.

"Wenona?" His voice was low and a bit hoarse.

She turned around to him, but didn't say a word.

"What time is it?" he asked in a whisper as before.

"I don't know", she said, "late."

He sat up.

"I thought you were in your room", he said.

She turned to the window again. "Why do people always whisper in the dark?" she asked instead of a reply.

"What?" he asked confused. She turned her head to him once more. Did she smile?

"Not so important", she said and he wished he could enfold himself in the velvety warmth of her voice.

"Hank?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry that I slapped you."

"You don't have to be sorry. I deserved it … for more than one reason."

She didn't reply to that and looked out of the window again. For a while there was silence, but a kind of silence that wasn't in the least awkward, quite the opposite: the peaceful and quiet get-together that night could have lasted forever.

"You ain't tired?" Hank eventually asked. She didn't answer.

"Wenona?" She just shook her head.

"You should go to sleep." He didn't want her to go, but he was also worried about her.

"No", she determinedly answered, "I don't want to." She was looking out of the window the whole time, as if she talked to the moon and not to Hank.

"Are you scared?"

No reaction.

"Of these dreams?" He couldn't see that only the thought of it brought tears to her eyes. Slowly she turned towards him and nodded.

"Yes", she whispered, "I'm scared."

"But…" he wanted to find words of comfort, "but, maybe they won't come back, these dreams."

"You heard what Cloud Dancing said."

"Yes, I did."

"Something isn't finished yet or not balanced. Only when this is the case will they stop."

"Yeah, maybe, but who says that it's _this._ Who says that it's about you turning yourself in to the Marshal?"

"You don't believe what Cloud Dancing said.

"No, I'm just saying that maybe it's about something else."

Wenona was quiet for a moment, and Hank cherished the hope that he'd made her think, but then she said: "This is no sheer coincidence that the Marshal came here now of all times, and that the dreams became worse at the same time." Her voice had this determined tone again, and Hank knew that any further word would be pointless and would only cause her to turn away from him again, and he didn't want that.

He sighed and let himself fall back on the pillow.

Once again the room was filled with silence.

"Yesterday I …" Hank began after a while and then he stopped in the middle of the sentence, since he didn't actually know why he started it.

"What was yesterday?" She asked.

"Nothing", he said.

"Come on, say it."

"Yesterday ... I closed the brothel."

With a jerk her head turned in his direction. He still couldn't clearly see her features, although his eyes had accommodated to the lightning, but he knew exactly in what way she looked at him now, with those eyes which were able to express about a thousand feelings at the same time. He felt her gaze as if it was tangible. She said no single word, she even seemed to hold her breath.

"There was such a guy", Hank started to tell and for a second he wanted to add: a guy who had the same eyes as Cass.

"He wanted to get a… one of the girls for his son, and he started to paw Haley and Greer. And then I suddenly thought of you and what Cass did to you." And again he refrained from mentioning the reason why he thought of Cass in this very moment.

"I told him to keep his hands off the girls, and that the brothel was closed." He shrugged. "And then it was just closed."

"And then it was just closed?" Wenona repeated, thunderstruck. As always he hadn't thought about things; there were no deep thoughts that had preceded the decision to close the brothel, no consideration, no pros and cons. What he had all the years before vehemently defended as the basis of his business and what he had declared out of question, he had swept aside within seconds, as if it was not more than the decision between meatloaf and chicken at Grace's café.

Suddenly it took not more than an impulse to close it, and Wenona was aware that _she_ was the cause and the reason for this impulse.

And no matter whatever would be, she was also aware what he really wanted to tell her by doing this.What he had wanted to tell her by all his actions throughout the last days, in this clumsy unpractised way. She wasn't sure if he knew the words for it, or if he would ever be brave enough to say them, but she felt it and maybe that meant more.

Hank looked at her insecurely. "What are you thinking now?" he asked in expectation of her verdict.

She smiled at him, without his being able to see it. "That I'm tired", she said.

"Do you wanna go to your room?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Do you … do you wanna …lay down here, perhaps? Beside me?" Actually he expected that she would strongly reject this, but she hesitated with her answer, then nodded and said: "Yes, … yes, I think, I want to." And then she went over to him.

He moved aside a little - although the bed was by far big enough for two people - reaching out his left arm for her. She didn't fold back the blanket, but lay on it, but nevertheless she nestled into his arm and rested her head against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. Steady, and maybe slightly fast. She felt as he put the outer part of the blanket over her and wrapped his arms around her, not desirously, just protectively and so softly, that after a while, she didn't know anymore where his arms ended and where her own body began. Did she want to go away from here ever again? His heartbeats were like a lullaby that slowly lulled her to sleep. Her eyelids became heavy. The fear had left her, she felt held and safe, and slowly, very slowly, she sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Hank didn't dare to move, he only felt as her body let go more and more. He had never been allowed to hold her like this before. Never. And maybe he would never be able to do it again. Maybe he would also never again have the opportunity to say it. He wasn't sure if she could still hear him. But he wanted to name his feelings if only for once in his life. And he whispered, since in the dark people always whispered: "I love you, Wenona."


	29. Chapter 29

_29._

_He knew everything. EVERYTHING. Everything that he had to know._

_It had been so easy. Drunken saloon goers could be so talkative. Bit by bit the whole story had revealed itself to him. From the abduction to the rescue …to the death of his brother … and of his son._

_Now he knew how Wenona had come here. He knew about this woman doctor, Dr. Quinn, and about Hank Lawson, the damned barkeeper, and he knew about a guy called Sully, who had seemingly played the hero. And all together they had Warner and Cass on their conscience. His brother and his son. His SON. His only son who had turned out well. They would pay for it. All of them. Every damned one of them. Well, the business with the barkeeper had possibly even taken care of itself already. What a pity._

_Almost everybody, to whom he had talked in the saloon, had known something. He'd simply had to drop a few words about that whore of a half-breed. Oh yeah, she was sweet, one of them had said. And she'd had such a bad life. "A bad life?" he had asked. And then every one of them had known something. She had been abused by these criminals, one had said. But when they had abducted Dr. Mike, as they called her, and Hank, the tide had turned, and Wenona had sided with the abducted people; she had helped them to flee and had saved their lives. And thank God Sully and a few other people from town had been appeared in time. And he and Hank had finished those murderers off then. Wenona had almost died, since one of them had shot her, but Dr. Mike had been able to save her, and since that day she'd lived here in this town._

_This was basically what the men in the saloon had to tell. They hadn't been always in agreement with their different versions. One of them had even claimed to know that Wenona herself had shot one of the two abductors; another had said, no, Sully had let his tomahawk speak. A third one insisted that the two women had helped Hank to first overpower one of them and then the other, and Sully had only done the rest._

_However it may have been, what difference did it make? Absolutely none._

_He knew everything he had to know._

_He staggered through the deserted streets of Colorado Springs, not because he was drunk, oh no, concerning alcohol he was as sober as one could be. But he was drunk with the thought of revenge. Revenge, revenge, revenge. This word circled around in his head like a spinning top. Around and around and around, but without aim._

_He had to know what to do. He couldn't go and shoot them all down just like that, as they deserved. There was that Marshal, who would have more quickly clapped him up in jail than even one of their damned bodies would have become cold._

_He had to think up something. Too bad that he had taken Sid along. That simpleton wasn't in the least bit of use to him. That idiot had always adored Wenona. Well, when he heard that she more or less had his brother on her conscience, maybe he would change his mind._

_He could probably only rely on Floyd, as long as he would get what he wanted. And why not? Let him have his pleasure. He didn't care. _

_He looked around, saw the saloon, vis-à-vis the clinic and the office of that paper woman, saw Grace's café, Loren's store and Jake's barbershop. He went on, saw the bank and Robert E's smithy, the jail and further back the train station. He turned around and saw the church, where they surely gathered nicely every Sunday. And they probably sent all their dear little children to the school on the small hill. _

_He'd had children as well. Two of them. A great son and a worthless late arrival, who was half spoiled by that bitch. And his son was taken away from him. _

_How many of them here knew about it? All of them. Enough of them anyway. Shouldn't they all be called to account? Shouldn't they all suffer for giving that whore refuge? Were they not all guilty in the end? Somebody should just burn down everything, wipe out everything, like these murderers had wiped out the life of his son._

_His gaze circled just like his thoughts: from one place to another, back and forth, up and down._

_And then he froze. As if out of nowhere a man was standing in front of the saloon. A strange man, who turned his head with a jerk in his direction as he became aware of him, but then turned back again and went towards the church. The way he walked was as strange as his appearance. He was dressed like a clergyman. What was he doing here in the middle of the night? He must have come out of the hotel, so he wasn't from around here._

_He decided to follow the man. His instinct told him to._

"_To follow your instinct is a sad business, you have to plan things." Warner had said that once. Maybe he would still be alive, if he had followed his instinct and hadn't trusted that bitch of an Indian._

_He would approach everything completely differently. And maybe his instinct worked better than his brother's._

_He went slowly after this strange figure._

_The devil seemed to have planned the encounter of these two, and the fact that it took place in the church probably made hell tremble under his laughter._


	30. Chapter 30

30.

"Brian? Haven't you been listening?" Mrs. Teresa Slicker asked with an astonished and slightly amused voice, because she had noticed the reason, why her best student hadn't been able to follow the last lessons at all, long ago

The reason was sitting one desk diagonally in front of him, had long brown hair, light reddish brown lively eyes, a quick mind and her name was Nellie Baker. She was new in town and had attended the local school for two days now.

"Uhm… excuse me, Miss Tere… uhm Mrs. Mor…, uhm Mrs. uhm Mrs. Slicker." Brian had turned bright red. Teresa raised her eyebrows, managed to keep a straight face with great effort and said: "Very good, Brian, at least you have remembered my name, maybe now you can remember the event that triggered off the French Revolution?"

"Uhm, yes, the French Revolution was triggered by…" Nellie turned around and smiled at him, "…was triggered by…" his brain seemed to consist of jelly, "by the kissing of the Bastille." There was a second of silence and then: peals of laughter. It took another second until his own words came to his conscious, and he desperately yelled against the noisy laughter: "The _storming_, the storming of the Bastille…" Where was the hole in the earth into which he could sink at once?"

"Quiet!" Teresa shouted and tried hard to keep control of her voice which wavered dangerously.

"Absolutely right, Brian, the …storming…of the Bastille was the trigger. Now who can tell me the names of the most important revolutionaries?"

…

The morning was always a very hectic time for Horace. It was the time when the mail arrived and also most of the telegrams. Moreover there was the ten o'clock train to Denver that was used by many people. Sometimes he thought that he actually needed an assistant. But then again there were a number of afternoons when absolutely nothing happened and he could safely go to Grace's Café or the Gold Nugget without him being afraid he would miss something.

"Horace!" Preston headed towards him. The usual domineering tone, which was supposed to convey the importance of his request and the accompanying significant gaze made Horace sigh inwardly. Since Preston had been able to get his bank back on its feet with the help of the money his father had given him as a ransom for Dr. Quinn and Hank back then, and had been on the edge of buying back his hotel too, he was quite himself again: sometimes unbearable. However, the people had not forgotten what he had done for Dr. Mike and Sully, even if it was still inexplicable for most of them, and so his unpopularity kept within bounds, and Preston himself coped very well with it.

"Horace, I have a very important telegram here. Could you please send it straightaway?"

"Could it possibly wait until after the train has gone?" Horace asked and took a nervous look at the clock. It was quarter to ten. Preston made a face as if Horace had suggested abolishing Christmas.

A small, elderly lady pushed through to the ticket window: "May I have a ticket to Denver, please?"

"Of course, Mrs. Farnsworth." Horace shrugged apologetically towards Preston. "Only ten minutes, Preston", he said to him and gave the lady a ticket.

Preston sighed, turned on his heels and shouted over his shoulder on the way: "Ten minutes, but not longer, Horace. Is that clear?"

…

Matthew knocked on the door of Daniel's office and after an inviting "Come in!" he entered. He found the sheriff sitting at his desk, writing a letter.

"Hey, Daniel, who are you writing to?" Matthew asked artlessly, but he regretted his spontaneity at once when he saw Daniel directing his gaze to the piece of paper in slight embarrassment.

"Oh, sorry", Matthew apologised, "I didn't want to be indiscreet."

"No", Daniel said, and there was a hint of melancholy in his voice, "no, it's okay. It doesn't matter if you know it."

Matthew looked at him questioningly: "Know what?"

"Do you remember that friend of mine, who offered me that job in his goldmine last year around Christmas? I'm writing to him, telling him that I'll come now. I guess he'll still have something for me to do."

"What? But why?" Matthew was taken aback.

Daniel smiled wistfully and looked at him.

"I have to get away from here, Matthew. A least for a time. Please, …I don't want to have to explain it now. I just want to ask you if you possibly could help out as a sheriff, at least temporarily. I could go earlier then."

Matthew was still shocked, but he nodded mechanically and murmured: "Of course, if that helps you."

Daniel got up and patted him on the shoulder. "Thanks. I appreciate that."

"Do Sully and Dr. Mike already know that you wanna leave Colorado Springs?"

The mention of Michaela gave Daniel a little prick in his heart.

"No, you're the only one who knows so far", he said then, "I'm probably going to tell them today." He got a grip on himself and laughed at Matthew encouragingly: "Don't worry about me, okay?"

…

Jake Slicker stepped outside the door of his barbershop after he had dismissed his only customer this morning with a new haircut, shave included, and relieved of one dollar.

It was a wonderful day; the air was cold, but clear and bright, and the streets of the town were full of life again. Robert E. worked vis-à-vis at the smithy and sang to himself in a good mood. When Grace went past him, she threw him a roguish smile, as Jake noticed in amusement. He grinned and remembered that he and his wife Teresa had left their house this morning in an especially good mood too. The full moon seemed to have had its effect on a lot of different people.

On Loren, however, in a rather negative way, since he came grumblingly out of his store and hardly replied to Grace's greeting as she picked some vegetables from the stand outside.

"What's wrong, Loren?" Jake called to him, "another broken window pane?"

Loren cast him an angry glance.

"No, not 'another', but still the same. That shark of a supplier hasn't delivered the ordered pane yet. And anybody can easily walk in here anytime."

"Why don't you have such things in stock anyway?" Jake asked artlessly.

"Because even the biggest stock is exhausted eventually", Loren got all excited.

"Then you should have ordered earlier", Jake said, unmoved.

"Do you wanna tell me how I should run my business?" Loren retorted vehemently.

"Yes, Jake, better not do that, it's beneficial for all of us." Reverend Johnson stepped out of the store at that moment, and tried to find his way around Loren.

"Could you possibly turn your attention to me now, Loren?" Grace asked and rolled her eyes. "Because if you intend to enjoy my apple-pie this afternoon, you'd better quickly sell me some of these apples."

Jake was almost a little bit disappointed when a new customer entered his barber shop and he had to follow him inside, since there was hardly anything of a higher entertainment value than Loren Bray in a bad mood.

…

Sully stopped the wagon in front of the clinic and let Michaela get off. When she turned around to him once more, her eyes glowed and a special smile ran over her face. A conspiratorial, excited and slightly embarrassed smile, as teenagers, who fell in love for the very first time, sometimes showed. Sully returned it with great tenderness and he felt like jumping down from the wagon to take her into his arms again …and more. Like the night before out on that field, in that big open area right under the moon.

They had arrived home much too late. Tired, frozen, but relieved and happier than in all the months before. Exhausted they had thrown themselves onto their bed, and had later asked Matthew to take Brian to school and Katie to widow Clark, who had a little girl too and often took care of Katie when Michaela was busy at the clinic.

They had just savored the morning and probably would have even longer, if Michaela had not remembered that there was a 'patient' waiting at the clinic.

"Patient?" Sully had asked, puzzled.

"Hank", Michaela had answered and Sully had rolled his eyes and resigned to his fate.

…

She felt as if she was lying on a cloud. As light as a feather, warm and safe. She fought against awakening, since she instinctively knew that she would then strike the ground. She didn't want to leave this place. On the other hand, the more she came around the more she became aware of his nearness, his arms which embraced her, his steady breathing which told her that he was still sound asleep, his hair that had spread over her forehead. She was lying half on him and her left arm was tightly wrapped around his body; the blanket had got out of place and her legs had somehow got into a muddle with his.

Finally she opened her eyes and blinked immediately as bright light flowed through the room. She heard a door downstairs. Michaela had just arrived.

Wenona raised her head and in the same moment Hank stirred. His arms closed more firmly around her, as if he wanted to hold onto her.

"Hank", she said softly and brushed his hair out of his face.

"Hmm", he growled, half asleep, and brought her even closer.

"Dr. Mike just arrived. I have to get up". As if she really wanted to do that.

"ielagoway", was the unintelligible mumble he uttered, and then he turned onto his side almost burying Wenona, who he didn't let go while doing this, underneath him.

"Hey", she protested with a laugh, "Hank, that's really dangerous with you. Help!" Through her vehement tries to emerge from under him he finally became awake. He looked at her in confusion. Then he smiled. "Morning!"

If she hadn't have done it now, her heart that wildly thumping demanded it would have burst for sure. And without warning she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. When she let him go, he happily looked down to her, but suddenly an almost anxious expression appeared in his eyes.

"Don't leave me", he implored. Her hand tenderly stroked his forehead as if she wanted to take all the worries away from him and she said: "I won't."

Then she jumped out of the bed, smoothed her clothes and her hair, and quickly washed her face. Before she left the room, she threw him an impish smile.

From downstairs she heard the door once more, and when she got to the examination room, Michaela had already gone again. Her medical bag, which was standing on the desk, told of the fact that she had been here before, but shortly after this had left the clinic. Wenona couldn't wait to tell her what she had decided in the meantime. She wouldn't turn herself in to the Marshal. She hadn't dreamt anything in the night. She had been with Hank and hadn't dreamt anything. This sure was a sign. These dreams must have been about something different. She couldn't remember ever being as happy as in the last night. She couldn't throw that away, not for anything in the world.

She bustled around in the clinic, cleaned instruments, rolled up bandages, arranged medicines and hung onto her thoughts. When the clinic door opened and closed again, she hardly perceived it.

And then, after a dreamless night, the nightmare stepped right into the middle of her world again as she heard a deep, far too familiar voice of a man behind her back: "Hi, Noni."


	31. Chapter 31

31.

Right after he had taken Michaela to the clinic, Sully had brought the wagon to Robert E. to let him check the wheels. Dreamily he watched the blacksmith do his work; the latter however felt quiet strange, as Sully looked at him with a constant faraway smile playing around his lips

In fact Sully almost looked _through_ his friend rather than really being aware of Robert E. working with the cart grease.

He felt as if a huge knot in his chest had burst, as if he could breathe freely for the first time in months, as if he had fallen hopelessly in love again.

And suddenly a pair of arms wound around his chest from behind, a body huddled against his broad back and Michaela's softly breathed happy laugh wasn't necessary for him to recognize her.

He turned around to face her and took her into his arms.

"I'm sorry", Michaela said and her cheeks coloured slightly. "I just had to…I just wanted to…"

"That was a good idea", Sully smiled and kissed her passionately in the middle of the street, and he didn't mind in the least that Preston, who came out of the bank in this moment and headed for the train station for the second time, threw them a derisive look.

The colour of Michaela's cheeks had intensified after this kiss and for a few seconds she buried her face in Sully's chest.

"Michaela", Sully whispered to her in amusement, "we're married, you remember?"

She giggled like a girl.

"I know, but I don't feel like. I mean ... I mean … I feel so … I'm so … do you know what I mean?" Sully laughed. "Exactly."

Michaela was beaming all out with him and then she regretfully said: "I have to go now." Sully nodded his head.

A last kiss, a last tender look, then Michaela turned around and headed towards the clinic. She saw Dorothy in front of the Gazette and waved to her cheerfully.

"Hello Michaela, you seem to be in an especially good mood today," Dorothy said delightedly to her friend. But before Michaela was able to answer, they heard the stamping noise of a quickly approaching horse that somebody was driving at full gallop into town. It was Cloud Dancing.

He stopped right between Dorothy and Michaela and jumped down.

"Cloud Dancing, has something happened?" Dorothy asked in dismay and ran to him.

Cloud Dancing was out of breath from the ride and answered more to Michaela than to Dorothy: "I don't know". He looked around as if he would expect to discover something. "If nothing has happened yet, then something probably will".

Michaela looked at him in fear. She had hardly ever seen Cloud Dancing in such turmoil. He noticed her fright and tried to become a little calmer.

"I had a vision last night", he said, "a very clear and unmistakable vision." He hesitated before he kept on speaking: "A raven flew over the town. A white raven."

"A white raven?" Michaela asked. Cloud Dancing nodded seriously. "Yes, a white raven, and while he was flying he gradually lost all his feathers until all that remained was a black skeleton."

Michaela shuddered.

"In the end he landed on the church's steeple", Cloud Dancing ended and fell silent.

"And then?" Michaela asked.

"Nothing", Cloud Dancing said. "Visions show the danger, but not the effect of it or how to deal with it. However, in this case it isn't necessary, because it is quite clear."

"And what?" Michaela asked again, whereas Dorothy caught her breath.

"The raven must be found in time."

Michaela seemed to wake up from the stupor Cloud Dancing's report had caused in her. She had certainly a lot of respect for the medicine man, but she was also a down-to-earth woman and thereunto as a physician primarily rooted in a world of science. And so she couldn't completely free herself from a good dose of scepticism. The raven as a symbol of bad luck, a white raven… nothing in her life indicated that there could possibly be anything disastrous right now, on the contrary: what had been confused had started to resolve, her life was about to improve. Cloud Dancing was surely mistaken, or his spirits had been mistaken, or he hadn't understood it right, hadn't interpreted it right.

She shook off the initial fright like a dog shakes off the water after he jumps in a lake.

Dorothy still had an anxious expression on her face, but Michaela asked a question one last time: "Who or what is this raven supposed to be, Cloud Dancing?"

Cloud Dancing looked at Michaela and he saw her doubt and her refusal to believe in his vision.

"No matter what it is", he said then, "it's something we are not prepared for."


	32. Chapter 32

32.

Cloud Dancing had always been a good friend to the family, but lately Michaela couldn't exactly say that she found their encounters very uplifting. First the thing with these dreams, and now this vision. It was as if he permanently cast a shadow over their lives. But she wouldn't allow that. Not now.

With the brief excuse that she unfortunately had to go to work now, and after she had told the Indian where he could find Sully, she went to the clinic. As she opened the door she turned around to Dorothy, who still looked very worried, once more and smiled encouragingly to her. Then she went inside and firmly slammed the door shut, as if she was able to lock out Cloud Dancing's visions by doing so.

"Well, well, who have we here?" The unpleasant sound of a male voice behind her back caused her to whirl around with a start.

In front of her desk, a revolver in his hand and a triumphant evil grin on his face stood a man, whom she didn't know. He looked vaguely familiar to her, but she didn't know where from. Wenona was standing near the cupboard, pressed into a corner. Her usually light brown skin looked almost grey, and in her eyes Michaela could read pure horror.

"Who are you?" Michaela asked the man and tried hard to make her voice sound as strong as possible, but she could hear for herself that she failed. The memory of the last attack that had taken place in this room and of the horror that had followed it was too fresh.

The grin on the face of the man became even broader, but also colder.

"Right, you don't know me. But, as I've heard, you knew my brother … and my son."

Michaela looked into his eyes and recognized them immediately. She felt as if she was going to vomit at once. She wanted to scream, but even if the man hadn't have pointed his revolver at her, she was certain that every sound would have got stuck in her throat.

"Tell her who I am, Noni", the man said, but Wenona didn't seem to be able to utter a word either.

"Come on", he insisted, "introduce me to your friend."

Wenona swallowed and her voice was not more than a breath when she said: "This is … Mr. Karl."

"And?" demanded Karl.

"Cass' father", Wenona said.

Karl slowly nodded his head, the grin had disappeared and he looked at Wenona with narrowed eyes.

"Right, Cass' father. And the man who gave you a home, you bitch."

He gestured with the revolver and ordered Michaela: "Go on, over there with her." Michaela obeyed. Thoughts were revolving in her mind. She tried to think what they could do, but there was nothing, and Wenona was completely paralysed.

"Very good that I have you together here. So there are only two missing, and it's very handy that one of them is already around here, isn't he? So, we'll take care of him first."

Wenona's heart started to race and Michaela also knew what the man intended to do. It wasn't that difficult to guess. She had no idea how he had come here and how he had found out what he obviously knew, but that didn't matter at the moment. They had to gain time.

"What do you want from us" she blurted.

He looked at her coldly and for a pretty long time and then he said: "To get back my son." He made a brief pause, as if he was waiting for an answer. "Ah", he said full of sarcasm, "you can't manage that? Well, then … you will have to pay for his life in a different way." Again he gestured with his revolver and forced the two women to go towards the door which led to the recovery rooms.

"Put your hands up! And now you will lead me to this fellow, if you don't mind."

Michaela desperately thought of a way to warn Hank. On the stairs she said loudly: "I don't know what you get out of it. Mr. Lawson is very ill. I don't even know if he will survive."

"Well, _I _ know exactly if he will", he said quietly and thrust the revolver into her back to push her forward. Michaela didn't know if Hank had heard her. On the last step she faked stumbling over her skirt, and let herself fall on the floor. The man dragged her up by the arm and whispered to her with a threatening voice: "You'd better not try any tricks." He made a movement with his head towards Wenona. "And if you don't know how earnest I am about that, then ask little Noni. She knows."

He let her go, and Michaela straightened up and raised her hands again. She sent a quick prayer to heaven hoping that Hank had heard the tumult on the stairs, and tried to cast an encouraging look to Wenona.

They came nearer to the room. In front of the door Michaela hesitated.

"Here it is", she said.

"What are you waiting for then?" he asked and of course he had no intention of going first. Wenona wasn't able to move. It was the room that she had left shortly before, overjoyed and inspired by new hope. Over. Her happiness had not even lasted half an hour. Michaela put her hand on the door handle and pushed it down with a thumping heart.

_Dear God, no_, it struck her as she stepped in. Hank must have misunderstood her. Obviously he had believed that he was supposed to play the patient again. He lay in the bed with his eyes closed; his hands were resting slackly on his body as if he was unconscious, or at least in a deep sleep.

Karl didn't give them time to think and shoved them out of the way.

"Over there, to the other side, so that I can see you", he commanded gruffly, then he closed the door behind him and went nearer to Hank. Michaela searched in her mind and without moving her eyes the room for something that she might possibly use as a weapon. But there was nothing. She heard Wenona whispering next to her: "Please don't … please." As if it had ever helped to beseech Karl.

He had stepped right beside Hank now and pointed the revolver at him. Alternately at his head, his chest and his stomach. He raised his eyes to the two women who stood opposite him, and started to grin again.

"Well? What do you think?" he asked and kept on changing the aiming point of his gun, "How does he like it better, slowly or fast?"

In the next moment his right wrist was grabbed, and at the same time Hank's fist shot up and landed accurately on Karl's chin.

Hank snatched the revolver and jumped out of the bed, ready to hit him again, but that wasn't necessary. Apparently he had landed a lucky punch, because Karl went down unconscious.

With a suppressed sob, Wenona rushed forward to Hank and clung to him with all her might. Hank held onto her and turned to Michaela with a stunned expression.

"Who the heck is that?"

Michaela, who was still weak at the knees, stepped forward and cast a glance at Karl, as if she was scared that he might jump up again any moment; then she said: "This is Cass' father. I haven't the slightest idea how he got here." Hank gave her a serious look and absentmindedly stroked Wenona's head.

"But I know", he said then and told them about his encounter at the saloon and that Karl had been accompanied by that man, Michaela's patient with the cut arm.

"That guy must have told him that Wenona is here", he concluded and Michaela nodded in agreement.

"Hadn't we better tie him up somehow?" she asked then.

"Above all else we should get Daniel", Hank said.

"I'll go", Michaela answered at once, and carefully stepped over Karl to get to the door.

"By the way", said Hank, "if you wanna give me a warning next time, maybe you could express yourself a little bit more clearly. This nearly went wrong."

Michaela gasped for breath. "Sorry, I did my best. I really don't know what else I could have said." Hank raised his eyebrows and said: "Something with 'bump off' or 'kill' would have been good." Michaela pressed her lips together and refrained from another retort. It just wasn't the moment to get into an argument with him. In passing - and actually with a certain relief – she noticed that he was already half dressed. As if he had guessed her thoughts he called after her as she was about to go: "And just for the record and in case that somebody asks you some other time: I like it better slowly."


	33. Chapter 33

33.

"I really don't know what the problem is; nothing's happened", Karl moaned, rubbed his damaged chin, and stared sullenly through the bars of the jail cell that Daniel had put him in.

Hank snorted with rage: "You wanted to bump me off, you bloody bastard."

"And after that probably Michaela and Wenona as well", Sully added. He had watched Michaela run agitatedly to the sheriff's office and call Daniel, and he had followed her at once, accompanied by Cloud Dancing. Together they had headed for the clinic again and had found Hank, keeping Karl, who had come round in the meantime, in check and holding Wenona in his arm. The young woman had still been in shock.

She was waiting with Cloud Dancing in front of the jail now, since they hadn't expected her to be in the same room as the man who called himself her 'foster father'.

"What nonsense", Karl boldly tried to sweep aside the accusations.

"Alright, I frightened the ladies a little bit, but that's all."

Michaela couldn't believe how audacious this man was.

"Frightened a little bit?" she yelled at him, "you threatened us with your revolver and you wanted to kill us. First Hank and then us. You made that quite clear. And the fact that we're still alive, we owe only to good luck, but not to you."

"Well, actually more to me than good luck, don't you think?" Hank threw in, slightly offended, but nobody paid any attention to him.

"Listen, I heard rumours that our little Noni had ended up here. You see, she made a getaway just like that after we had given her a home for many years."

"Of course not, you just wanted to take revenge for the death of your brother and your son, that's it", retorted Michaela.

"Absolutely not, lady, because if I had really wanted to do that, you wouldn't be here now, believe me." Karl suddenly looked at her with a gaze that was hard as iron, and Michaela immediately had an uneasy feeling again. Those eyes had the same merciless expression as Warner and Cass had shown back then. And she didn't doubt his words for a second: if he wanted revenge, he would get it.

Sully, who had put his arm around Michaela, felt as the tension returned to her. He pushed her gently aside and stepped forward to Karl, quite close to the bars, a dangerous glisten in his eyes.

"Don't you dare threaten my wife or anybody else here in this town ever again, neither with a gun nor with words." Karl wanted to open his mouth, but Sully's hand moved through the bars quick as a flash, and clutched the man's throat.

"Don't you dare keep on talking your way out of it and pretend that everything was nothing but a silly joke." His voice became louder. "It's not a joke to attack people. It's not a joke to point a gun at them and drive them along in front of you. It's not a joke to shoot and kill somebody." Disgusted, he tossed Karl away.

"And don't you dare play Wenona's benefactor ever again. We know exactly what you have done to her. People like you should rot in a prison cell. And you will."

Sully almost trembled with suppressed rage.

Karl, who had fallen onto the floor, looked up to him, and a strange expression appeared on his face. It was a mixture of hatred and fear, but there was something else too: an expression like gamblers had shortly before they put a surprising trump onto the table. Confident of victory.

Sully turned around to Michaela again, Hank was about to go outside to Wenona, and Daniel said, he would go and send a telegram to the judge, when Karl raised his voice once more:

"If I rot in jail … then _she_ will too."

All eyes turned to him again. Silent. Alarmed.

He didn't get up from the floor, just waited.

"You understood me", he said then, when nobody answered.

"I heard a few things yesterday, and there is that Marshal from Denver, who urgently wants to find out who accompanied Warner and Cass … in those days …. I believe he would love to clap this 'somebody' up in jail … let _her_ rot …in a prison cell."

Wenona suddenly appeared in the doorway. She had heard everything from outside. Completely expressionless she stared at Karl. Hank wanted to take her out of the room again, but she pushed his hand aside and entered.

"By the way, Noni, Sid is here too, and he sure would like to say 'hello' to you before we set off for home", Karl called to her, as if he had just talked about the weather right before. Wenona didn't answer, and Karl laughed and got up.

"Well, people, that's the way things are. Firstly you have nothing on me anyway, because nothing has happened, and secondly, you certainly don't want the Marshal to find out what he wants to know so dearly, do you?

If all this had occurred just one day earlier, Wenona would have thrown the fact that she intended to turn herself in to the Marshal, and that there was no way he could intimidate her, right back in his face, but today everything was different. She couldn't bear to go away from here, to leave Hank. It would break her heart; she had known that since last night. It would be her death.

The others looked at her expectantly, and she slowly shook her head.

Karl looked very satisfied with himself. "So, this is settled. Can you find the key, Sheriff?" he asked Daniel sneeringly, and directed his eyes to the lock on the cell door. Daniel hesitated, but Hank drew his gun and pointed it right in Karl's hated face.

"You will go nowhere", he snarled through his teeth.

For a moment Karl shrunk back, but then he started to grin again.

"No? If you shoot me, dear Noni can watch you swing. But of course only in the case that she won't already be in the slammer herself, since the Marshal will have heard the reason _why_ you shot me. I think my friend Floyd Madsen could tell him that."

Wenona pulled Hank's outstretched arm down. She felt his powerless rage, she knew exactly what was going on inside him and what he was thinking about, and she hated Karl more in this moment than ever before

The atmosphere in the small room literally glowed with anger, but it was unable to get at Karl, and he knew that.

Daniel took the key and opened the cell door.

"Get out and don't ever show up here again", he said to him, "this time you've been lucky, but next time you won't be, and whoever gets you then will have the support of the whole town, believe me." Karl gave him a friendly smile and nodded. Michaela turned away, disgusted, but when he wanted to pass Sully, the latter stepped in his way.

"Remember my warning." Karl simply wanted to keep going, but Sully grasped his arm: "You won't get away with this, I promise you."

Karl freed himself, cast a disdainful look to Sully and Wenona, and stumbled outside.

"Karl!" someone shouted behind his back after he had taken a few steps. He turned around in surprise. Wenona looked straight into his eyes. She had lost her fear, as she had lost it once in a moment which meant life or death. For Cass then, it was death.

Karl noticed the change in her, and this suddenly caused a feeling of insecurity in him, more than Sully or Hank could have ever managed, since he only knew her as an obedient and frightened creature.

"Did you know that Cass taught me to shoot?" she asked out of the blue.

Karl made a disdainful face again. "He just told me that you were pathetic."

"He sure wouldn't say that today", Wenona retorted coldly, "I was very talented; I just didn't let him see how good I actually was." She resisted his gaze, raised her chin a bit higher, and then her voice was like a lash in Karl's face when she said: "But now he knows exactly."


	34. Chapter 34

34.

Marshal Reeves hadn't slept very well that night. Bad dreams had repeatedly interrupted his sleep. In one of them, Reverend Willoughby had appeared, and had wanted to snatch the Marshal-star from his coat. Then he had dreamt of Dr. Quinn and Hank Lawson, of the moment when she had bent over him after his collapse at the café, but the difference was that he had been in the place of Hank Lawson and she had bent over him; and when she had done so, she had urged him, as if she was his mother, to finally cut his hair. And in another dream he had seen an Indian woman, shadowy, very far away, who had reached out her hands to him and changed, as she came nearer, to Wenona, Dr. Quinn's assistant, who looked at him with big beautiful eyes.

When he woke up early in the morning he felt absolutely shattered, and so he decided to allow himself a few extra hours of sleep.

It was already past ten o'clock when he woke up again. Puzzled, he became aware that somebody was knocking on his door.

"Just a minute, please", he called, gathered his clothes together and got dressed. After he had briefly washed his face with some water and run his fingers through his hair, he finally opened the door.

"Mrs. Anderson!" Marshal Reeves was surprised to see the sister in law of Reverend Willoughby's dead wife. The woman had behaved completely inconspicuously so far, and even if he wasn't exactly happy to have her around, he couldn't say that she had been in his way, in contrast to the Reverend. She hardly said a word, didn't ask questions and wasn't demanding in any way; it was almost as if she wasn't there at all.

But now she was standing in front of his door and looked, probably for the very first time, right into his eyes.

"May I talk to you, Marshal?" She expressed this request almost as if she would be rather relieved if he rejected it. She didn't like to talk about things; that was obvious.

The Marshal briefly wondered whether she had always been like this, or if the past events, the death of her husband, had caused this; then he invited her to come in.

With a gesture he pointed to the only chair in the room. The woman sat down, but just on the edge, as if she wanted to leave as soon as possible.

Marshal Reeves took a seat on his bed and looked at her expectantly, but she didn't say anything, and stared at her fingernails.

"You wanted to talk to me", he helped her along.

She raised her head, and again he noticed her empty eyes. Like a house that was deserted and where henceforth was no life anymore, neither happiness nor sadness, neither love nor hate; which only waited to slowly fall apart. And all of a sudden he felt compassion with her. She had lost her husband, and in her empty eyes he could see, that he had irretrievably taken a piece of her soul along with him. What was worse than losing the beloved, never seeing them again? Nothing.

"Mrs. Anderson, you wanted to …" he started once more.

"Yes, excuse me", she hastily interrupted him, "I was in my brother-in-law's room earlier on, I mean the husband of my sister-in-law, and I wanted to tell him that I want to leave today."

"Good", involuntarily slipped from Marshal Reeves' lips and he hastened to correct himself and said: "that's certainly the right decision, because – as I already said – it doesn't make sense for you to …"

"He told me that he knew who the third man was", she interrupted him again, and this time Marshal Reeves' mouth remained open with surprise.

"He told you what?" he asked in complete perplexity.

"Yes, he said, he couldn't leave here, he had to do something. And he knew who the culprits were", the woman said.

"The _culprits_? Plural?" Marshal Reeves asked, confused.

"That's what he said: the culprits", she confirmed.

"And how does he know that?" the Marshal doubtfully asked.

"I don't know, but Mr. Reeves … Marshal … the Reverend is a … a … confused man. You've probably noticed that yourself. I don't know what's going on in his head, but it's nothing that would go on in a … a normal head, you see? I … I thought, I had to tell you this."

The Marshal nodded without saying a word and with a shocked expression.

"When did you talk to him, Mrs. Anderson?" he asked then.

"It was about an hour ago; I waited for you to come out of your room, but when you didn't, I thought … I had to come and tell you."

"Where is he now?"

"I don't know; he left the hotel."

"Goodness", the Marshal murmured, "and of course you don't know where he's gone."

"No", the woman breathed flatly.

"All right", the Marshal said, trying to keep his composure, "we'll surely find him. I thank you, Mrs. Anderson. Thank you very much."

She stood up and went to the door. But before she left she half turned around again and said, without knowing herself why: "You know, … he didn't even love Mathilda." And Marshal Reeves saw tears in her empty eyes.


	35. Chapter 35

_35._

_His steps were short but nevertheless rushed as he approached his destination. He kept his head half bowed and turned it neither to the right nor to the left, but his eyes never stopped moving back and forth to constantly monitor his surroundings, to see whether somebody might possibly be watching him after all. But he didn't meet many people._

_He had remained hidden as the man had told him, had waited until the ten o'clock train had left, as had been arranged, and then he set off._

_They all looked so harmless, he thought. But they weren't. They weren't._

_God had guided him into this town and God had shown him what he had to do. In the church he had shown him. He had sent him a messenger, and now he was about to fulfil his assignment. And in the end his guilt would be expiated. He would punish the culprits, and Mathilda couldn't accuse him any longer. He would punish them all. The man had told him how._

_His right hand clasped the bag that he had given him, and that he hid under his coat: the instrument of purgation. _

_He didn't have to go much further now, then he would be there, then he could start his work. He had already taken a close look at everything during the night, so he knew exactly how he had to proceed._

_They deserved it. They were criminals, murderers, and their children would grow up into criminals too._

_The man at the church had told him that. He had become a victim of these murderers himself. They had killed his family, his son. And they had killed Mathilda. Only two of these criminals were dead so far, but the ones who had worked everything out were still alive._

"_Don't you wonder why this Dr. Quinn and Hank Lawson have survived?" the man at the church had asked him. "It's because they made common cause with this Indian woman. Them and this guy named Sully. And the whole town was in league with them. Every one of them knows about it. And nobody sits in judgment on them. And the death of your wife and of my son remain unexpiated. Someone should wipe them out together with their brood."_

_And then he had known that this man was a messenger._

_Together with their brood…_

_He paused in his movement for a moment when he heard children's voices, and searched for cover in a hiding place. They mustn't see him, not here, not now. He didn't care if he had to come into open view later, but then his work would soon be finished. This was just the beginning now._

_He waited several minutes until it was quiet again, until the door had clicked shut. And even then he hesitated for a while._

_He folded his hands: "I'm doing the right thing, Lord, I know, I was given a sign last night. I mustn't doubt now. It is my assignment. An eye for an eye…_

_This is the beginning…_

_And then every other building in this town, every other human being. One after another. They will pay for their sins. I'm the tool."_

_And then he stepped forwards and approached the house. He couldn't hear anything from inside. Doors and windows were closed. He didn't dare to look in a window for fear of being spotted. And he had to hurry._

_He pulled out the bag from under his coat and took out the bundles of dynamite. He knew were he had to place them so that they would create the greatest possible impact. The man had shown him. He had also organized the dynamite. And he had told him the best time for him to do it._

_He was grateful to this man. For the first time somebody had helped him, for the first time somebody had listened to him, hadn't told him he shouldn't get all worked up over this, that he should keep out of it. For the first time somebody had understood him, had understood what it meant to him to repay this crime. For the first time somebody had even supported him in that. Oh yes, he was grateful indeed._

_He unrolled the fuses and laid them, one after the other, over the ground. The man had shown him this as well. He was supposed to use long fuses, so that, with four explosive charges, he had the time to move far enough away._

_Near the bridge three riders rode out of town at a thunderous gallop._

_He gave a start._

_Had he heard something? A child's voice?_

_They didn't know what would happen in a few minutes, even in a few seconds._

_He had never had a child. She had refused to give him one. She had refused to give herself to him. She could have had another life. It could have been different. She had wanted it this way. And then she had left him behind with this guilt. Yes, it was like her revenge for him. He hadn't been able to save her life. He hadn't tried hard enough to save it._

_That was his guilt. He lit the first fuse_

_He had borne this guilt long enough. He lit the second fuse._

_Now it would be redeemed. He lit the third fuse._

_Now he was free. He lit the fourth fuse._

_He ran and ran as if the devil was behind him. He had no idea that he actually was._


	36. Chapter 36

36.

"I'd better keep an eye on him and see if he really leaves the town", Cloud Dancing said as Karl moved away from the jail.

"Yeah, thanks", escaped from Hank's lips. The Indian, as well as everybody else looked at him in astonishment, and Hank was a little surprised himself about his natural reaction, but he twisted his mouth to a kind of smile and gave Cloud Dancing a nod; then he went to Wenona, who was still standing in the same place.

"So that wasn't a lucky shot then?" he asked her and took her hand in his.

She looked at him and shook her head slightly: "No, it wasn't."

"Well, then I was practically safe", he said and grinned a bit. She returned his smile. "Yes, you were." He allowed himself to sink into her eyes for a moment and tenderly stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.

"What are you doing now?" he asked then.

"I want to see Sid", she said. He slightly wrinkled his brow and asked: "Sid?"

She sighed and looked into the distance.

"Cass' younger brother", she explained. "He was six years old when I came into their house and he was … he was a bit retarded, you see?"

She looked up to him and he nodded in understanding.

"He was totally neglected. Nobody cared about him. Karl hadn't wanted any more children anyway, and least of all a child like Sid. Cass was his everything. But Sid was a nice boy, it's hard to believe considering this family, but he was. He could never be angry with anybody, no matter how they treated him. He was very attached to me and I practically brought him up. Well, until Warner came and took me and Cass along with him. Since that day I haven't seen him."

When she had finished, she spotted a boy who was just coming around the corner. Karl must have sent him.

He gave the impression of being very shy, but he was beaming all over his face as he saw Wenona, and a great melancholy came over her at his sight.

"Please, Hank, you can leave me alone with him by all means", she requested.

He stroked her arm one last time and then went towards the saloon.

As he was about to enter, he almost bumped into the Marshal. With all these upsetting events this morning he had completely forgotten about his collapse the day before, but now it became clear to him that he had to think of a believable story at once.

The Marshal was more than astonished. His jaw literally dropped, and then he said: "Mr. Lawson, what a surprise. How are you feeling?"

Hank stared at him with a motionless face and it took a few seconds until he frowned and said: "Good, I'm feeling good. Why the heck is everybody asking me, so surprised, how I'm feeling?" The Marshal was even more taken aback.

"Excuse me, but yesterday your condition was very …critical…after all." Hank just looked at him questioningly, as if he didn't know what the Marshal was talking about.

"You had this terrible collapse", the Marshal explained and suddenly light dawned in him. "Don't you remember that?"

"Hell, no, I don't know anything about anything. Only that I woke up in one of them beds in the clinic this morning, and that Michaela constantly wants to check my pulse and my pupils. Dr. Quinn, I mean", he added.

As if he had given her the cue, Michaela appeared vis-à-vis at the clinic. With worry she saw Hank having a conversation with the Marshal and she decided to interfere.

"Good morning, Marshal. Hank, I have…"

"Not now, Michaela, okay?" Hank interrupted her as a precaution, before she could say something wrong, "I really don't have the time to let you feel my pulse all morning. I can't remember anything, I'm fine and I got work to do now." He gave her a meaningful look, which the Marshal fortunately interpreted in a different way to Michaela. Then he went to his place behind the bar.

Michaela smiled at the Marshal in slight embarrassment.

"He really can't remember anything?" Marshal Reeves asked once again.

"Well, no … he can't", Michaela answered, "this …this can happen. Like with an epileptic seizure …something like that. So, he was lucky anyhow, and we can all be glad."

"Especially that young woman who works for you", the Marshal said with a smile.

"Oh, yes. I think so too." Michaela felt a little bit uneasy under the gaze of the Marshal's radiant blue eyes, which seemed to get through anything. There was too much that she had to conceal from him.

"But as much I'd like to talk about such pleasant things as the fortunate recovery of Mr. Lawson or the emotional life of your lovely assistant, there are some rather unpleasant things I have to take care of at the moment."

As soon as she heard this, Michaela was in turmoil inside.

"Did you happen to see the Reverend this morning? Reverend Willoughby I mean", he added. Michaela was surprised and said: "No, Marshal, I'm sorry. And anyway I haven't met the Reverend so far, so I wouldn't know what he looks like, in the case I did see him by chance somewhere after all."

"Oh, of course, how stupid of me", the Marshal apologized, "do you know who could possibly help me? It's really very urgent. I have to find this man."

Michaela saw that he looked very worried, and that frightened her. She thought about his question. Sully had to accompany the Marshal.

"My husband could probably help you. He's still with the sheriff." _Still._ She could have slapped herself. But the Marshal hadn't noticed anything.

"That's a good idea, thank you very much, Dr. Quinn." He didn't waste any more time and immediately set off.

"Marshal Reeves?" Michaela just couldn't help it. The Marshal stopped in his pace and turned around to her. "Yes?"

"May I ask you the reason why you need to find the Reverend so urgently?" Michaela asked, as she tried hard not to sound nervous but merely interested.

The Marshal took a few steps back towards her again and said with an earnest voice: "Obviously he believes that he has found the third abductor."


	37. Chapter 37

37.

Wenona was sitting with Sid on the steps in front of Bray's mercantile. He was still beaming at her.

"Will you come home with us again now?" he asked her hopefully.

She looked into this face which resembled that of Cass' so much in many ways; resembled and was still so completely different. Maybe she hadn't killed Cass earlier just because she had seen Sid in him. Now he was already eighteen years old, and she still saw the little boy of those days in him, who always looked up to her with big, dull, loving eyes and never understood anything. Who didn't know why his parents didn't love him; who possibly didn't even notice, since _he_ loved _them._ And also his big brother, no matter how much he mocked him. And Wenona, who was so beautiful and always good to him.

She looked at him and almost imperceptibly shook her head: "No Sid, I won't come home with you. This is my home now." A shadow of disappointment ran over his face, but then he nodded as if he understood her and said: "You didn't like it a lot at our place, did you?" Wenona swallowed and answered: "No, Sid, I didn't like it a lot." Then she took his hand and said: "You were the best of all."

From the store they could hear the voices of Loren, Matthew and the Reverend; next door Jake Slicker stepped in front of his door once again and waited for other customers; and in the next building Preston was just coming back to his bank. Robert E. had returned from the café to his work, and let the hammer fall rhythmically onto a glowing piece of iron on the anvil.

Sully and Daniel stood outside the sheriff's office, where Daniel had disclosed to his friend that he was going to leave Colorado Springs. "Because of Wenona", Sully had immediately recognized, and Daniel had cast him a short sad glance and thought that he would probably never know for sure himself because of whom. And he would never find out in this town. It would be painful to leave, but it would be even more painful to stay.

But Sully understood him. Deep down inside, far too deep to ever let it emerge in words on the surface, he understood Daniel exactly. And unfortunately he was the very last person in the world who could offer him consolation in this matter, although he was his best friend.

Marshal Reeves hurried past Wenona and Sid, briefly raising his hand in greeting. He saw Sully and Daniel and ran straight towards them.

"Mr. Sully, please, may I quickly talk to you?" he called to him.

Wenona didn't hear the further conversation. She sat with Sid and let her mind wander.

Michaela crossed the street and went to Dorothy, who stood outside the Gazette. Some guests came out of the saloon, obviously just about to leave, and Hank stepped through the door too, shaking hands with them affably as they said goodbye. Then he sat down in his usual place next to the entrance. Wenona knew that he wanted to keep an eye on her for safety's sake.

Suddenly she noticed a man who was approaching her, and whom she seemed to know fleetingly when she took a closer look at him. He grinned at her in an impudent way, but then he turned to Sid.

"Come on. Your father said I should come and get you; we'll ride off. Looks as if they don't like us very much in this town." He grinned again at Wenona.

Sid got up and followed Floyd Madsen. The latter touched his hat with his hand in greeting and said in a clearly suggestive tone: "Maybe we'll see each other again some day."

"Yeah, Wenona, we'll visit you", Sid agreed joyfully and innocently. Madsen burst out in loud laughter. "Yeah, Sid, we'll do that. We'll do that."

He noticed that he was drawing the attention of the people. Matthew came out of the store and Daniel and Sully interrupted their conversation with the Marshal. Hank got up from his chair and came towards them with determined strides.

"Come on, boy, time to make off", Madsen murmured, "your father's waiting over there with the horses." Wenona looked past him and saw Karl near the bridge. Now he came a short way towards them; Madsen and Sid went to him, mounted their horses, and together, without turning around once more, the _three men rode out of town at a thunderous gallop …_

Matthew went back inside the store where Loren and the Reverend were having a lively discussion …

Preston rushed out of his bank for the third time, because he had remembered that he had forgotten something very important in his telegram …

A new customer arrived at Jake's barbershop …

Robert E. hammered on that piece of iron …

Grace prepared her apple-pie …

Sully talked to the Marshal again …

Hank accompanied Wenona to the clinic …

Michaela said goodbye to Dorothy to go to the clinic as well …

And Teresa let her students draw sketches of different herbs within the nature study lesson …

And then …

The explosion was deafening and made the whole town literally shake. After the terrible detonation and the fright that made everybody freeze, there was a moment of shocked paralysis; every kind of life seemed to stand still. But then the tumult started, and they saw the huge cloud of dust which hung in the air outside the town. They ran to the bridge, sending prayers to heaven that they wouldn't see what they were afraid to see. But they saw it nevertheless, through all the dust, which thickened the air around the tiny hill: it was the school.


	38. Chapter 38

38.

The roaring fourfold thunder of the explosion could be heard from where Cloud Dancing was following the three riders, at a certain distance. He started at it and stopped his horse. He suspected that the detonation had taken place in Colorado Springs, but he became certain as he saw that the three men made their horses stop as well and obviously exchanged triumphant looks. He couldn't hear what they were talking about, but their laughter reached his ear. They didn't waste any more time and drove their horses on once again.

Cloud Dancing wavered for a moment between his wish to ride back into town to see what had happened and his instinct that told him that it was important to keep on following these men. He thought of his vision of the white raven … Had it become true?

He kept riding behind the three…

…

The school was literally razed to the ground, less then a heap of rubble.

The meadow had never seen greater suffering.

The air was filled with screams; parents, who called their children's names; women who broke down in the street, shaken by crying fits; people who helplessly ran around and didn't dare approach the place where the school had been for fear of the horror which awaited them.

Jake had been one of the last to reach the meadow. Completely distraught, his eyes clung on the place where the school had been before. His lips moved without a sound, over and over again, over and over again they formed her name until it finally broke out of him as a scream: "TERESA!" Again and again he called her name, yelled it, whispered it. His legs didn't obey him anymore and he fell down, his head buried in his arms. Hank and Wenona ran to him. Wenona took him in her arms and held him. Loren approached them. "Jake", he murmured, helplessly looking around, "my God".

A woman right next to them desperately called the name of her daughter, and her husband, tears running all over his face, tried to prevent her from running to the school.

Behind them, Sully appeared, his face petrified, frozen to a shocked mask. The Marshal, who accompanied him, and who wasn't any less shocked than anybody else, didn't have to ask him, but could see that he had had a child in the school too.

It took a while before Sully was gripped by the thought of searching for Michaela. He looked around and couldn't find her in all the chaos at first, but then he saw her. She was on the bridge and clung to the railing; her entire body seemed to be reaching for a hold on it. Dorothy was with her and embraced her. It was exactly the same spot where Brian had seen the schoolhouse for the very first time, after his operation. All of a sudden the pictures of those days emerged in Sully's mind: as the whole town had started to build that schoolhouse, as they had suddenly put all quarrels, all dislikes aside to fulfil the last, the dearest wish of a little boy, whose life was touch and go. And how happy he had been when he had seen it…

"Brian", Michaela softly wailed over and over again, too weak to raise her voice, too weak to keep her feet anymore.

"Michaela", Sully said, almost equally weak, and he heard his own voice as if it came from a distant place.

She fell into his arms, not more than just a desperate bundle of human being, not capable of uttering anything anymore, finished.

"Ma." Matthew appeared on the bridge. His eyes were filled with tears, but he had the expression of someone who wasn't willing to believe what he saw. He laid his hand on Michaela's back. She turned to him, embraced him, whispered his name.

"I'll go and search for him, Ma", Matthew cried. "Someone has to…someone has to go there and…"

"No!" she cried out and tightened the embrace.

"I will go", Sully said, "stay with your Ma, Matthew."

"Sully don't", Dorothy tried to hold him back, "let someone else go." But Sully had already set forward; slowly, because every single step hurt him.

Robert E. watched him and went over to him, as well as Daniel, Hank and Marshal Reeves.

"Sully, don't do that to yourself", Robert E. said, "leave this to us."

Sully's steps became heavier.

"Let me go, Mr. Sully", the Marshal said and held him by the shoulder.

Sully nodded, exhausted, and then sank to the ground. Everything was spinning around him, the people, the meadow. The voices, the screams hardly reached him anymore. And he was grateful for that. He couldn't bear it any longer. So much suffering and hopelessness.

Hope …

And then he heard that woman, as she called the name of her son: "BEN!" She seemed to drown out everything, but her voice was different from the others. Not desperate, but …stunned … incredulous …

Sully raised his head and looked for the woman, and then he followed her gaze to the edge of the forest behind the school.

There was a little boy with a sketch pad in his hand. He stood there motionless and stared at his destroyed school. And then another boy turned up behind him, then a girl with long brown hair, Nellie. Every eye went to the edge of the forest. One child after another appeared, each of them armed with a sketch pad and pencils and they were all shocked. And their parents, relatives, friends on the other side of the meadow, the people of Colorado Springs gradually started to understand what had happened. Eventually all sixteen children had come out of the forest, and Brian and Teresa were in their midst. Full of horror they were standing in front of the place where the school had been in the past; the place where they'd had lessons earlier the same morning. And they understood as well.

For a few seconds there was complete silence and then the people on both sides started to run towards each other. The meadow had never seen greater happiness.


	39. Chapter 39

39.

"Jake, look! Jake! She's alive." Wenona gently shook him. Her tear-stained face was beaming. "Everyone is alive."

It was a miracle. But if they had known what had been arranged the night before at the church, many of them might have said: God simply doesn't put up with something like this.

Jake didn't know anything about it anyway. He couldn't think straight at all when Wenona helped him on his feet; he only knew that he must go to Teresa at once, although his legs were in danger of giving way again. She was still far away, behind the children who were lying in their parents' arms. She walked as if in a trance and only hesitantly put one foot in front of the other. It was the same with Jake. He didn't perceive what was going on around him. He didn't see Michaela and Sully, who embraced each other, overjoyed, while Matthew whirled his younger brother around and then released him to give his parents the opportunity to hug him again. He also didn't see Marshal Reeves, who busied himself with the scene of the crime and searched for pieces of evidence.

He only saw Teresa. She was quite near now. He reached out his arms for her, but she grasped them and when he surprisedly looked into her eyes, he discovered the deep shock that still held her in a grip.

"Jake", she said, and her voice was strangely factual, "the … the school …the school blew up. Have you seen that, Jake? It's gone."

"Yes, Teresa", he answered softly "I've seen it." She grasped his arms even more tightly and went on speaking: "But we were not there. We were on an excursion, you know. First I wanted to go on with history, but then I thought it's such a beautiful day, and Wenona showed me a place in the woods lately, where more then 30 different herbs grow, and I thought, well, I thought, then we'd better go on with natural study and we can go there, and the children can make sketches and …and Wenona could come in one of the next days and could tell us something about these herbs, you know. I thought it was a good idea." Jake tenderly looked at her and said: "That was a wonderful idea, Teresa." Tears were running over his face.

"We were not there, Jake", Teresa stammered and her voice began to shake, "we were not there. We … we heard the bang. We heard it. But we were not there." Jake drew her into his arms where she started to sob uncontrollably. "You were not there", he whispered, and thanked God from the bottom of his heart.

Michaela held Brian in a tight embrace. Like most of the people she had needed a while to really believe this luck, to believe what she saw right in front of her eyes. And just like Jake she didn't get her strength back from one second to the next, but the longer she held Brian in her arms the more she was able to comprehend, and she beamed and laughed and cried at the same time.

"Ma, you're crushing me." Brian tried to gain a little more breathing space, and Michaela laughed: "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you will have to put up with this today."

The Marshal had come over to Sully, and waited tactfully until he had the feeling that he could disturb them.

"There were apparently four charges of dynamite; do you have any idea, who might be capable of doing something like that?"

Sully immediately thought of Karl and his buddy, but that was impossible; nobody could have a better alibi than those two, and so he said: "Not the slightest, Marshal."

The Marshal looked at him and sighed: "Well, it's hard to believe that there is anybody who is able to do that at all. It's just crazy."

Michaela didn't hear anything of this conversation. She still cuddled Brian, whether he liked it or not, and Matthew was very amused about it. But suddenly Michaela's attention was distracted.

There was a movement by the church, a man. He came around the corner and moved slowly along the building, never turning his gaze away from what was going on in the meadow. He was pretty far away, but it was clear that he wasn't from town. Nevertheless Michaela had the feeling that she knew this man. She separated from her family and went nearer to him to get a closer look at him.

It took a little while until the man noticed that he had attracted her attention. He moved away from the church and took a few steps towards Michaela as well. He smiled at her in an eerie way, and then she recognized him. She had seen him before. Just once. And she would never forget this face. It was the man from her dream.

"SULLY!"

She staggered backwards.

"Sully!" He ran to her.

"What happened Michaela?" he asked, alarmed.

"That's him, Sully, the man from my dream." He followed her gaze and saw the man.

"That's this Reverend", Sully said in bewilderment.

"That's him", Michaela repeated in sheer panic, "the man from my dream, who … who killed you. He certainly blew up the school too. He is the white raven from Cloud Dancing's vision."

Sully looked at Michaela, deeply concerned; he had never seen her like this before, as if she had lost her mind.

In the meantime, other people had become aware of them too.

Reverend Willoughby stood still.

"Wait here", Sully said and went slowly towards the Reverend.

"No, Sully, don't", Michaela cried after him, but it was as if she was paralysed. Marshal Reeves went past her and followed Sully.

"Reverend?" Sully called to the man.

"I failed", the Reverend said.

"Sorry, what did you say?" asked Sully and went on.

"I wanted to wipe out your brood first", and before Sully realized what the Reverend just had uttered, the latter went on: "But then … then I have to start with you." And saying this he drew a revolver from under his coat without a warning, and pointed it right at Sully. Not a fraction of a second later, a shot tore the air and for the second time this morning, piercing screams resounded over the meadow.


	40. Chapter 40

40.

With a quickness that took one's breath away, Marshal Reeves had drawn his revolver. He ran past Sully towards the Reverend, who was lying on the ground, bleeding from a wound to his chest, and knelt down beside him. Shortly after, Michaela, Sully, Wenona and the others came too. Wenona knelt down as well, lifted the head of the injured man onto her lap and waited for Michaela to do something, but the latter just stood there and stared down to the man.

"Dr. Mike!" Wenona said, astonished, and slowly, but with perceptible aversion Michaela let herself sink to her knees and began to unbutton the shirt of the Reverend, who could only breathe with great difficulty, and to examine the wound. She saw that all efforts would be pointless and looked for Reverend Johnson. The Marshal, however, still tried to ask Reverend Willoughby some questions in the meantime.

"Reverend, was it you who blew up the schoolhouse?

The Reverend just looked at him with wide open crazy eyes, and then with his last ounce of strength shoved Michaela's hands away.

"Your sister-in-law told me that you'd found something out. Is that right?"

The Reverend nodded weakly. Wenona looked up with fright, but the Marshal only paid attention to the Reverend and tried to hear what he said, faintly croaking:

"…town … sinners … all … murderers….my assignment…."

Marshal Reeves couldn't make head or tail of what the man was able to utter.

"What assignment?"

The Reverend grabbed the Marshal's coat and held onto it as he said: "…all guilty ….all … he … he told me …..that." He let go and went down again.

Reverend Johnson arrived and Matthew accompanied him forward to the dying man.

"Who? Who told you this, Reverend?" the Marshal tried again, but Reverend Johnson softly raised his hand. "Excuse me, please, Marshal, but I think it's time for other things now."

And he turned to his former colleague. "Do you have something to say to ease your conscience?"

Reverend Willoughby's breathing was shallow and fast, and then he said with a low and faltering voice, but clearly audible to everybody who stood close by: "I'm … sorry …"

"That's good", Reverend Johnson said, but the man continued: "…that I … failed … that I couldn't … my assignment … I couldn't … expiate … my guilt…I … " It was over.

Reverend Willoughby was dead, and the fact that his only regret in the end was meant for himself shocked the bystanders almost more than anything that had happened before. In his effort to expiate his guilt, which he had always talked about, he had increased it thousand fold. He hadn't been able to see that, and he would take it with him wherever he would go now.

Wenona laid his head on the ground and got to her feet, trembling. _She_ had understood what the Reverend had said, and she could form a picture of what or who had impelled him to commit the attack on the school … and why.

It hadn't been enough for Karl to take revenge by just killing the people whom he considered to be the 'murderers' of his son. No, he had wanted to cause suffering, the worst kind of suffering that was imaginable. And he had used this crazy, desperate man, who had suffered himself, for this plan. He had planted crazy ideas in his confused mind, had told him what he was supposed to do and when. And he, Karl himself, had a perfect alibi. Nobody could have ever declared him responsible for these murders, because a whole town had seen him riding away just before the crime had happened.

She searched with her eyes for Hank and saw that he thought the same, just like Michaela and Sully.

"It's enough now", she said with a firm voice and a determined expression, turned around and ran straight to the town.

"What does she mean?" the Marshal asked in surprise and looked behind her and Hank, who had followed her at once.

"She means, that Reverend Willoughby has just been used", Michaela explained and started to move too. Sully whistled to Wolf and ran towards the town as well. And so did Matthew, Daniel, Robert E. and Jake.

"Used by whom", the Marshal asked and ran beside Michaela.

"By a man named Karl", Michaela said.

"And who the heck is this Karl supposed to be?"

Michaela stopped dead when she had reached the clinic. Wenona and Hank had disappeared into the saloon.

"Karl is the brother of Warner and the father of Cass, the two abductors from those days."

She ran into the clinic to take her medical bag and left Marshal Reeves to his bewilderment. When she came back, he asked: "And how do you know that?" Michaela attached her bag to Flash's saddle.

Wenona and Hank came out of the saloon, both with rifles.

"This Karl threatened our lives this morning", Michaela answered, turning her eyes to Wenona and Hank.

"What? What's going on in this town for heavens sake? And why do I know nothing about it?" the Marshal flared out fairly angrily.

"Now you know", Hank said impatiently and turned to Wenona. "Better stay here, it's too dangerous."

"What's too dangerous? What the hell are you going to do?"

Sully, Jake, Robert E., Daniel and Matthew came over, riding on their horses. Every one of them armed with guns, except for Sully.

Wenona walked across the street towards the Marshal.

"We'll chase after the man who is responsible for these crimes, for blowing up the school; who wanted to kill the children of this town and who has the life and the soul of that poor man who just died over there on the meadow on his conscience."

"How do you know that he did this?" the Marshal asked and looked into the burning eyes of the young half-Indian woman.

"Because I know. Nobody can prove it. No court in the world could ever pronounce him guilty, but he won't get away with it. These times are over, once and for all."

She swung onto her horse; just like Sully she rode without a saddle.

"I'm coming with you, because I know the way", she told Hank, "and aside from that is it my business." With that she rode off.

"But you will stay here, Michaela", Sully tried to order, but Michaela had already mounted Flash.

"Forget it Sully, it's my business too." And she rode behind Hank and Wenona. Sully hurried to drive his horse as well, and the others set off too.

"Wait a minute", Marshal Reeves shouted and ran to his horse himself now, "I'd rather say, it's _my_ business, I represent the law after all."

But Jake called as he rode past him: "Today _we_ are the law."


	41. Chapter 41

41.

Cloud Dancing had followed the men for almost two hours. He had always stayed at a safe distance and from time to time he had made sure that he left clear tracks behind.

A certain feeling and the reactions of two of the men to the detonation told him that they had something to do with it, and he assumed that more people in town would have this idea too, and would follow them. And he urgently hoped that nothing had happened to any of the people he cared for.

The three men, however, didn't seem to be in the least bit worried, that somebody could be following them, for some reason. In the beginning they had galloped their horses quite fast, but eventually they had fallen into a slower, almost leisurely pace. The route they took led into the mountains, and became more and more difficult, although it was passable. They seemed to know exactly where they wanted to go and it looked as if they were really heading back home. As if they had finished everything which they had intended to do.

…

…

Karl was in an excellent mood. It couldn't have gone any better. That idiot really had been a godsend. He laughed loudly at that thought: A godsend. Indeed. After all he had met him at the church.

"Hey, what's so funny?" Floyd asked; he wasn't in as good a mood as Karl. He had pictured everything a bit differently. It didn't matter to him who snuffed it in that town, and if Karl got his revenge or not … actually that didn't matter to him either, as long as he, Floyd, got what he had lusted after for years. And now they were heading back home just like that. No, Floyd Madsen was actually rather disappointed.

"You should have seen that guy, Floyd. I could have told him the President himself had killed his missus and he would have believed me. He would have gone to Washington and would have arranged a nice little firework display there. By the way: thanks for damaging the pane of that store recently. Saved me a lot of trouble. I just had to more or less walk in and look around a bit in the cellar." Karl laughed again. "I can't still believe how easy all that was."

Sid was riding beside them and didn't understand what they were talking about. He had got a fright as he had heard the thunderous detonation, but when his father and Floyd had been so extremely pleased about it, he had thought that it was surely alright. Sid was always happy when others were happy, and when his father was happy, it meant that he wasn't so unfriendly towards him and sometimes even joked around. But Sid also didn't usually get the fact that these jokes were almost every time at his expense.

He thought of Wenona, and what she had said: that she hadn't liked it at their place, but that he had been the best of all. Nobody had ever considered him to be 'the best'. He would miss her.

Suddenly he heard something. Horses. Maybe Wenona had followed them; maybe she would come with them after all.

"Pa, there are horses coming, maybe it's Wenona", he said to his father who repeatedly shook with laughter and now looked at him angrily: "Rubbish, you simpleton", he snapped at him, but then he heard it too. The noise of galloping horses. The laughter immediately stuck in his throat. They were behind them.

"Go!" he shouted and drove his horse on.

…

…

It had been child's play for the group from Colorado Springs to follow the tracks of the criminals. Thanks to Wenona they knew the right direction and they were able to find the exact route from Cloud Dancing's marks, which Sully discovered without effort. Since the lead of the three wasn't that great and they felt safe, they had caught up with them after not even two hours. Marshal Reeves had tried to gain a deeper insight into what was going on by asking questions, and to find some kind of evidence for what Wenona had said, but eventually Sully had told him just to wait until they had caught up with the men, and see what happened.

Of course Wenona had known that what she had done had been risky; she had drawn attention to herself, had made the Marshal ask all these questions, and it was more than likely that he would find out the truth sooner or later. But that wasn't important. Nothing was as important any longer as making Karl pay for his actions. She wouldn't let herself be intimidated anymore; she wouldn't take what he had done, not even if it meant a risk, not even if he swept her away with him into the depths. It was too much.

But the fact that they were all at her side without questioning her decision or the way she acted gave her strength; a strength she had never felt before in her life, only since she had lived in this town, met these people, Hank …

That was more important than anything else.

Suddenly they saw Cloud Dancing appear in the distance; he waited for them and they drove their horses on.

"They are there up in front, they've heard you", the Indian called and joined the group of riders.

The three men ahead of them drove their horses on too. Sully gave the Marshal a meaningful look.

"Somebody with a clear conscience who just wants to ride back home doesn't have to run away, right?" he asked him. The Marshal didn't answer, but his facial expression said that he was of the same opinion.

The area became rocky and steep now; the horses wouldn't be able to move at this fast pace much longer, and actually, when they came around a corner, they saw the horses of the fleeing men standing deserted at the bottom of a ridge. When they reached them, Sully jumped from his horse and inspected the ground for tracks.

"They climbed up here", he called to the others and pointed at the ridge which basically consisted of huge rocks and scree and hardly showed a passable way up.

"They sure can't believe that they are able to escape here", Jake wondered

"That's not what they want", Sully said. "They just think that they have a greater chance of hitting us here, if we come behind them." Marshal Reeves nodded. "Yeah, and they are right about that." Sully went towards him. "Are you convinced now?"

The Marshal cast him an inquiring look.

"What are you going to do, if we catch them?" he asked in a sharp tone.

"They get what they deserve", Hank answered instead of Sully.

"You mean a proper trial?" the Marshal asked with a sarcastic expression in his eyes.

"Haven't you understood what Wenona told you earlier on?" Hank flared up, but Sully interrupted him: "Hank, do you wanna shout a little louder? Just to make sure that those jerks up there really can hear you?" Hank fell silent, but he was still mad and looked angrily at the Marshal.

"Marshal Reeves", Sully said quietly, "if you really are able to manage to catch those guys up there without getting shot by them, then you can put them on trial by all means. But you should be aware that we know exactly how unscrupulous at least one of them is, and that he won't hesitate to shoot every one of us, if he gets the opportunity."

"Sully's right, Marshal", Michaela threw in.

"What did you say is the name of this man?" Marshal Reeves asked and turned around to her, but Wenona gave the answer: "His name is Karl Miller."

The Marshal looked at her in astonishment. "You seem to know a lot about him." Wenona resisted the gaze from his piercing blue eyes. "Yes", she said then, "he was, so to speak, my foster father."

Michaela caught her breath, Hank closed his eyes for a moment, but Marshal Reeves just wrinkled his brow. A tiny little step forward and he would know everything, but he hadn't come that far yet. He just looked at Wenona and seemed to be surprised, but nobody could tell what about. About the sudden connections which opened up? Or about the manner of acting the young woman showed and the determined expression in her eyes, which rested on him?

The Marshal suddenly cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted with a loud voice: "Mr. Miller? Can you hear me? I'm Marshal Reeves." He waited, but there was no word of a reply.

"Mr. Miller, come down. I have to talk with you. Nothing will happen to you, I promise."

Nothing.

The Marshal let his gaze roam searchingly over the ridge, back and forth.

"Mr. Miller!" he shouted one last time, then he took his rifle out of the holster and started to reload it, and while he was doing so, he turned to Sully again: "So, what do you suggest?"


	42. Chapter 42

42.

Karl had heard the Marshal very well. _Mr. Miller …_ How did he know that? Of course, from that ungrateful Indian-bitch.

He was sitting next to Floyd in a recess of a rock. It was the ideal place to see who came up the ridge, whereas they themselves were sheltered as far as possible and couldn't be seen, except from further above; however, first somebody had to be able to get there. They had placed Sid a little way apart from them, so that he wouldn't be in their way. And it didn't matter to them that he might possibly get into the line of fire in that place. Furthermore good Noni had surely told her companions that they were supposed to spare poor Sid.

But additionally Karl had had an even better idea.

"Sid?" he called over to his son, whom he had given a revolver beforehand. "You know what you got to do, right?"

Sid looked over to his father, feeling uncomfortable, but he nodded and let the revolver wander back and forth between his hands.

He had never carried one, but his father had told him that it was important for him to have one, because it would probably be necessary to defend Wenona with it.

"But why?" Sid had asked in surprise.

"Well, boy", his father had answered, "those men down there don't want to let her come to us, they don't want to let her go, you see?" But Sid hadn't understood, because Wenona hadn't wished to come with them; she had that new home.

"Oh, no", his father had explained to him, "she just said that without meaning it. She wanted to come with us, especially for your sake. As you see, she has even followed us. But apparently she didn't quite make it, and now these men are behind us."

Now Sid was standing there in that place with the order to shoot at once as soon as he spotted anybody.

"Trust me, boy. Just do what I told you. It's for Wenona."

He trusted his Pa.

And he would do anything for Wenona …

…

…

The group had divided. Robert E. and Michaela had remained down with the horses. But Wenona had resolutely refused to stay there as well. Sully had scouted out the surroundings of the ridge and discovered that there was one more or less direct way to the top, which the three men had taken and which would very likely lead their pursuers right to their gun barrels; but apart from that way there were two other ways: one that was very steep to the north and another to the south, which was a bit easier, but represented quite a detour.

Marshal Reeves had immediately decided to take the direct path. And Daniel hadn't hesitated to join him.

"Two baits should be enough though", Marshal Reeves had declared pretty sarcastically, because to every one of them it was clear that they were practically on show for all to see and therefore in the most danger.

Sully, Matthew and Jake took the way to the north and Hank and Cloud Dancing accompanied stubborn Wenona along the more harmless way to the south.

Their hope was that the three men on the ridge would be distracted by Marshal Reeves and Daniel, so that Sully, Matthew and Jake could climb past them and then reach them from above. Hank, Cloud Dancing and Wenona were more or less supposed to block the path as a kind of third reinforcement, but in reality they mainly wanted to keep Wenona as far as possible from the place of danger.

Before the three groups had started, she had reminded everybody once again that Sid, the boy, should be hit in no case.

"He doesn't know what's going on at all", she had explained, "and he has absolutely nothing to do with Karl's actions."

…

…

Floyd Madsen was slowly but surely pissed off with everything. He hadn't imagined it to be like this. First the thing with Wenona hadn't worked, and now to top everything they were sitting up here between these rocks, and were being chased by some mad people and a Marshal. That wasn't actually what he'd had in mind when he had rode back home from Colorado Springs a few days earlier. What had he got to do with Karl's retaliation campaign? Nothing. Cass had been a nasty little devil, and Warner had always treated Floyd condescendingly. So what the hell was he doing here? Damn it, he thought.

Unmistakable noise reached their ears from somewhere below. So they were coming up to them. How stupid could people be? They would easily bump them off from their place. But did he really want that? To shoot a man, thereunto a Marshal? And, what was more important, to go to prison for that or even to be hanged?

Oh yes, Floyd Madsen was really pissed off.

Karl wasn't stupid. He had a reason why he had placed Sid at that spot, and he was also aware of the fact that there was more than one way to get onto this ridge. He didn't pay very much attention to the noise coming from below, but he listened carefully to see whether he could hear something from another side. The northern side was very steep, but it certainly wasn't impossible to climb up there, at least not if nothing unexpected happened. He put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket. He had saved one stick of dynamite. He pulled it out and shortened the fuse so that the explosive charge would be reached in only a few seconds.

"What are you gonna do?" Floyd asked him suspiciously.

"You'll see", Karl answered with a grin.

"Listen, this is getting too hot for me", Floyd complained. Karl laughed disdainfully. "Well, then just beat it, you wimp. I should've known that you're one of those kinds. And you think Wenona could see something in you? She is used to dealing with real men, you know, like Cass."

Floyd's face burned with rage, but Karl ignored it. "Go on" he encouraged him, "beat it, if you're able to find the way down."

"I will", Floyd hissed between his teeth, got up and ran past Sid. There was another path he had seen before on their way up. Originally he had wanted to keep going along that path, but Karl had decided to lie in wait for their pursuers. But now this game was finished for him. And he set foot on the path on the southern slope, without knowing that it would lead him right where he had desired to be for such a long time.


	43. Chapter 43

43.

"Would you please not run that fast", Hank hissed, his voice as low as possible, after Wenona, who virtually flew up the ridge. He was already panting himself, and he pressed his hand into his side. The path to the south wasn't very steep, but considerably longer than the other ways. Wenona turned around to him impatiently and said she wanted to get to the top at the same time as the others if possible, and that she was scared for Sid. Then she saw Cloud Dancing, who was behind Hank and indicated to her with gestures that she should be quiet and wait for them. Hank grumbled sullenly as he noticed that she listened to the Indian, but not to him; but the main thing was that she listened to somebody at all. They caught up with her, and from this moment Hank took the leading position.

…

…

Sully, Matthew and Jake had serious problems with their side of the ridge. It was much steeper in some places than they had expected, and without a rope extremely dangerous to climb; but it was definitely a short cut, and soon they believed that they were high enough. To know exactly where the three men were however, they had to wait for a sign from the Marshal and Daniel, which they did with very mixed feelings, because this sign could at the same time mean that they were delivered to the barrels of the men's guns.

…

…

Sid had already seen the two men from quite a distance. They were coming straight up to him. He became nervous. Floyd had stamped past him a short while ago and since then he hadn't shown up again, and his father was handling some reddish thing and didn't take any notice of him.

_You know what you got to do. _

Sid's hands were damp with sweat, and trembled when he aimed his revolver and stepped forward a little bit.

_It's for Wenona._

…

…

Jake had almost slipped when he heard the gunshot, and Matthew had to hold him by the arm, so that he wouldn't lose his balance and fall down.

"They are quite near", Sully said and suppressed the thought that either the Marshal or Daniel could possibly have been hit. The shot had been fired at about the same height as them, so they still had to climb a little bit higher, to get to the men from above.

…

…

Wenona got a fright when she heard the shot and reached instinctively for Hank's arm. They were still a good distance away from the men, but now they knew where they had to go. However, there was only one path, which they could follow anyway, and it bent around a rock ledge in front of them now.

"What if they hit the Marshal or Daniel?" Wenona whispered. Hank didn't know what to answer. He turned around to her and murmured that that surely wasn't the case. Right when he was about to turn forwards again, he saw, for a fraction of a second, a man appear in front of him, but he already felt a hard blow in his stomach which took his breath away and made him go down to his knees. The next blow landed on his nape. Then he fell to the ground unconscious, and Floyd Madsen pushed him aside with his foot; the rifle he had used to knock Hank down at the ready, and a pleased grin on his face.

…

…

Marshal Reeves and Daniel ducked, but the bullet from Sid's revolver had missed them by far. But who could know whether he would land a hit by chance next time.

The Marshal looked up. Sid was standing there, without any cover; with his revolver, raised, but also with clearly recognizable fear.

"Sid?" the Marshal called. The boy's eyes opened wide when he heard his name.

"Don't be scared, Sid, we don't want to harm you. Wenona told us that you haven't done anything bad."

"Let her go", Sid called and it sounded almost like a plea, "you'll be sorry if you do something to her."

"Nobody is going to do anything to her … and to you neither, Sid." The Marshal climbed a few steps higher.

"Sid!" his father barked at him, "go on and fire, will you!" Sid looked over to him helplessly. He had got himself to fire one shot, but he wasn't capable of firing a second. Besides, the man sounded so friendly. Karl got up and drew his own colt, but right at that moment he was distracted by a flock of birds, which had fluttered up over them. All of a sudden. From the northern side, not far away from them.

Karl drew out a match as quickly as possible, lit it, and held the flame up to the fuse of the dynamite. Two seconds later he threw it far behind him to the place where the birds had appeared. The detonation followed immediately afterwards.

He was pretty sure that he had caught them; either the explosion had directly rent them in pieces, or its impact had at least caused them to fall from the ridge.

…

…

"Not a sound", Floyd warned Wenona, who was about to let out a scream. Terrified, she alternately stared at Hank, who was lying very near to the chasm and didn't stir, and at the man in front of her, who came closer and closer. A hand lay down on her arm from behind and drew her backwards. She hadn't thought of Cloud Dancing for a moment. But now he pushed his way protectively in front of her.

Floyd laughed maliciously.

"You can't believe that I will stop for a dirty Injun." He held his rifle to Cloud Dancing's chest.

"Leave him alone", Wenona shouted, "what do you want?"

Again, Floyd grinned as suggestively as he had done once before.

"Well? What could I possibly want? … I want _you_. Karl promised me that I could have you, but then he got other things in his head. But not me." He walked slowly further and further forwards and the other two moved backwards at the same time.

"You will see: I'm as good as Cass; Karl can say what he wants. I will show you…" Quick as lightning, Cloud Dancing grabbed the gun, drew it to the side, and gave Floyd a kick with his foot at the same time. The man lost his balance; Cloud Dancing snatched the gun away from him and threw himself onto him.

…

…

"Didn't I tell you?" Sully whispered to Matthew and Jake. "I don't think the Marshal still has any doubt about the fact that Karl was the one who was behind the attack on the school.

After they had heard the Marshal talking to Sid, they had known that nothing had happened to him or Daniel. But if Karl had been the one who had procured the dynamite, then it was very likely that he still had some with him. To find this out and to distract Karl from Marshal Reeves and Daniel, Sully had thrown a stone at a group of birds that rested on the rock face. And Karl reacted promptly.

They were not far away from him anymore and if they could approach him now that he probably thought he was safe, they had the chance to catch him.

…

…

Sid was so startled by the detonation that he threw himself onto the ground. For a short time Karl forgot the men below, and distributed his attention on his triumph about his successful manoeuvre and his concurrent anger about his second son.

Marshal Reeves' sharp eyes spotted Karl at once when he emerged from behind the rocks which had afforded him shelter so far, right in his line of fire. But he didn't want to kill him; he had still the plan of putting the man on trial. The new pieces of evidence, which he had obtained in the meantime, and his own testimony would certainly be enough for the verdict of guilty. The Marshal aimed carefully and shot, barely but intentionally missing Karl's head.

"Give up, Miller", he shouted to him, when Karl, who had literally felt the draught of the bullet, reeled back against the rock face.

"If I want to hit you, I will hit you, so don't be a fool", Marshal Reeves shouted.

"First you would have to catch me", Karl retorted and shot blindly downwards, "and how will you two manage this all alone."

"They aren't alone", he heard Sully's voice from a rock above.

Karl whirled around in surprise, but he raised his revolver in a kind of reflex and shot at Sully, who quickly stepped back in cover.

Karl, however, fled. He took the same path as his buddy Floyd before. And he left Sid behind.


	44. Chapter 44

44.

When Hank slowly came around, he could barely move. However it was rather of benefit to him, since he would have plunged down with the slightest careless movement. He felt the rock on which he was lying and tried to get his bearings. He heard voices. Cloud Dancing, who shouted instructions to Wenona, while he was fighting with a man. She should run away, he shouted at her.

Hank slightly lifted his head; his view was still blurred, but he recognized Wenona, who had pressed herself against the rock face and obviously wasn't doing what the Indian told her. She had a rifle in her hands, but she couldn't use it to shoot, because she might have hit Cloud Dancing.

Why the heck doesn't she just hit it over the damned head of that jerk, Hank thought and tried to straighten up. In that moment the two men fell against Wenona and the rifle dropped from her hand and slid into a crevice. She couldn't reach it anymore.

Damn, Wenona, Hank thought and was horrified to see that the man was gaining the upper hand in the fight. Wenona threw herself onto the man from behind and flung her arms around his neck, but Madsen suddenly drew a knife out of his belt and cut her arm with it. With a cry of pain she let him go and staggered backwards. Cloud Dancing tried to repel the knife, which came dangerously near to his neck, but his strength weakened more and more. Hank groped for his revolver. He was fairly sure that he was unable to aim precisely enough, but he shot nevertheless.

Missed.

Even so he had achieved his aim: Floyd Madsen left Cloud Dancing alone, since it appeared more important to him to get rid of the man with the revolver before he was able to shoot better.

"People should always finish things off before they do something else, right?" he said and walked towards Hank. Wenona held her injured arm and screamed. Hank raised his revolver again, but Madsen had already reached him. Without any effort he snatched the gun away from him and pointed it at Hank. Then he grinned.

"Better we make it look like an accident". In saying this he raised his foot and was about to shove Hank over the slope. In this very moment, a hard thrown stone, as big as a fist, landed in his back. The force of the stone, but most of all the fright, made him stumble forwards; he lost his balance, fell over Hank and further into the chasm. Hank, who had narrowly escaped from being carried away by Madsen's fall, held onto a small piece of rock that jutted out of the ground. Cloud Dancing, who had thrown the stone, immediately ran over to him and reached out his hand to help him; Hank grabbed it and pulled himself up with a groan. Their eyes met and in contrast to other opportunities neither of them avoided the gaze of the other. Their exhaustion mirrored in their eyes, but there was also something like … amazement. The words 'thank you' were floating in the air, and both would have had every reason to speak them out loud, but they didn't. It wasn't the moment of words. It was one of those moments which remained forever and carried its marks far into the future.

But quickly Wenona came back into their minds. Hadn't she normally run over to them at once? Hank was the first to look towards her. She was still standing in the same spot as before, holding her bleeding arm, but she was looking past them. Hank followed her gaze and Cloud Dancing turned around too. There was Karl standing in front of them with his revolver in his hand. Didn't Sully say that this was the most harmless route? Hank briefly thought.

"Hands up", Karl said to the two men, while he approached Wenona and threw hasty glances in the direction he had come from. And shortly after this they heard why. The others, who had followed Karl, came around the corner, however they stopped dead when they saw that he was holding Wenona in front of him and was aiming at her head with his revolver. Sid was with them too. Daniel held him by the arm.

"Take your revolver and come over here, Sid", his father called to him, "and you others will throw all your weapons down there. Really slow. If just one of you tries a false move, I'll blow her pretty face away."

Karl didn't have many bullets left in his revolver; it was clear to him that he couldn't shoot all of them, but there were enough for Wenona. And that was his chance to escape. They knew that he wouldn't hesitate to shoot _her_, and they couldn't risk anything. One after another threw his gun downhill.

Karl smiled, satisfied.

"Well, then let's go. As you see, Sid, now dear Noni will come along with us after all."

Sid stared at his father, stunned by the way he held onto Wenona coarsely by grabbing her injured arm, the revolver at her temple.

"You're hurting her, Pa", he said. Karl laughed softly. "Really? I do?" He walked backwards and tugged even more at her arm, so that she twisted her face with pain.

"Pa, don't hurt her", Sid urged again.

"Don't worry", Karl sneered, "have you never heard that Injuns don't feel pain. Come on, you little idiot. And in case you think I shouldn't hold her by her arm, then maybe this is better?" He grabbed her hair brutally and drew her along by it. Wenona cried out.

"Pa!"

Hank, Sully and the others couldn't do a thing. They had to helplessly watch Karl setting off on the way downwards and torturing Wenona. Hank had suffered the same feeling of powerlessness three months before, and not even in his worst dreams he had thought that it could happen to him ever again. And Sully thought with terror that this man would meet Michaela at the bottom of the ridge. What was he going to do?

Marshal Reeves suddenly stepped forward

"Miller!" His voice was cold as ice. "You won't escape from me. There is no place in the whole world where you could hide."

Karl looked at him disdainfully: "Oh really, Marshal? When you're not able to find that third abductor you searched for the whole time, even if she is standing in front of your nose?"

Marshal Reeves narrowed his eyes and everybody else caught their breath.

"Here: our sweet Noni. Didn't you known that? Now you know. Well, this time I was faster than you, right?" Karl tugged Wenona, still by her hair, with him.

"I warn you: if you follow us, this little beauty is dead. And this time it's not a joke." And with this he set off for good, pulling Wenona with him and pushing Sid forward.

Hank couldn't bear to just keep standing around, and wanted to run behind them, but Jake held him back. "You've heard what he said: he will kill her, if we follow them." Hank broke loose. "What do you think will he do when he has reached the bottom? She shot his son. She had even told him. He won't let her survive."

Sully agreed with him: "He's right; as soon as he won't need her as cover, he will shoot her."

"And what are we supposed to do about it? Our guns are down there", Jake reminded them.

"Then we just have to get them. At least I won't stand around here doing nothing", Hank barked at him again and started to climb down the rocks to get to their guns.

Sully held onto him: "Maybe it's better if I do that." Hank nodded to him gratefully; he had forgotten for a moment that he still didn't feel very well.

Sully, Matthew and Cloud Dancing climbed down the rocks to get the guns and the rest of the group followed Karl along the same route he had taken.


	45. Chapter 45

45.

Michaela stared up to the ridge, eyes wide open, searching, hoping. She had heard everything, the gun-shots and the explosion, and she had heard Wenona's screams indistinctly too, but she had no idea what had happened up there. Robert E. had the rifle at the ready and was observing the ridge as well.

They couldn't tell how much time had passed since the others had set off on the way up. It seemed to them like hours.

"They are clearly in the majority, they will sure catch them", Robert E. tried to reassure Michaela from time to time, but since they had heard the explosion, he didn't seem to be so sure anymore.

Suddenly they heard a noise. Steps, which came from the southern side. Robert E. raised his gun and Michaela pressed herself against a tree, while she looked expectantly in that direction.

It was Sid, who appeared in front of them. Alone.

Michaela stepped forward and Robert E. lowered his gun a little bit. The boy looked rather distraught, and Michaela was about to go over to him.

"Sid?" she gently said to him, "that's your name, isn't it?"

The boy looked at her and opened his mouth slowly: "My Pa says, you should drop your gun, or he will shoot Wenona." Michaela went pale. What had happened to the others?

"He says: at once", Sid said again, and looked imploringly at Robert E.

The blacksmith searched for Michaela's eyes, but she was too shocked to pay attention to him, and so he threw the gun far away from him and raised his hands.

"Okay, Pa!" Sid called. Michaela could have sworn that he detested saying it.

And then Karl appeared. He held Wenona in a tight grip by her arm again. She looked bad. Her arm had become covered with blood in the meantime; there were strangulation marks on her neck, and blood was running from her nose too. Karl had treated her not exactly oversensitively on their way down.

"Wenona!" Michaela cried out and instinctively wanted to run towards her.

"Stop", Karl snarled at her.

"She is injured, I need to help her", Michaela said. Wenona just looked at her with gloomy and blank eyes.

"You need nothing. Sid, get the horses", he barked at his son, and Sid did what his father told him at once. He brought three horses: his own, his father's and Floyd's horse.

"Idiot! We need only two", Karl said. Sid looked at him uncomprehendingly, but Wenona knew what Karl meant.

Karl mounted his horse. "Go on, Sid! If you wanna come along, you better get onto that horse now", he shouted impatiently at his son, then he pointed his revolver at Wenona. Sid looked at him in disbelief, stunned. "You won't do anything to her, Pa, right? You only said that, right?"

"Bloody hell, get onto that horse now and stop that damned idiot-prate, you useless moron", Karl yelled at him.

"Don't listen to him, Sid", Wenona shouted, "you were the best of all".

…

…

Sully, Matthew and Cloud Dancing couldn't find all of their weapons, and some of them were out of reach, but they were able to get hold of a few of the guns and Sully got back his tomahawk too. They tried to join up with the others, who followed Karl, Sid and Wenona at a certain distance, as fast as possible.

Marshal Reeves hung onto his own thoughts in the meantime. He didn't know what had shocked him more: what this Karl Miller had done, or what he had said about the young Indian woman. She was supposed to be the accomplice of those brutal abductors? It was completely incredible to him. She seemed to be a normal citizen of the town, accepted, respected, even loved. Right from the start she had made an honest and warm-hearted impression on him. He remembered their first encounter, when she had come so briskly towards their table at the café and when Hank Lawson had had that collapse … from which he had recovered so surprisingly fast…

Slowly the truth began to dawn on the Marshal. He looked at Hank, who walked next to him, from the side. That was all just crazy. A part of him wished that Melissa St. Claire had never appeared in his office to make that damn statement about that third abductor, but another part of him, a feeling, told him that there was nothing more important than to solve this case, that there had never been anything more important.

They only had to walk around a few corners until they reached the bottom, when Sully appeared, behind him Matthew with two guns, and then Cloud Dancing, who had two more guns. Marshal Reeves and Hank immediately took one of them each, as well as Daniel. Matthew kept one for himself.

"Okay, let's go", the Marshal said. They started to run as quickly as the subsoil allowed.

They had only come a few steps further, when they heard the gun-shot. A gun-shot from the bottom of the ridge. And to those who knew a lot about guns was it clearly recognizable as a shot from a revolver. They stopped dead, horrified.

"No! Don't" Hank stammered breathlessly and started to run. The others behind him.

When they finally came around the last corner, the first thing they saw was Michaela, kneeling next to somebody who was lying on the ground. Robert E. was standing beside her.

And a few steps behind them was Wenona, who held a completely desperate Sid in a tight embrace.

Michaela heard the men and got up. She looked deeply shaken. Sully ran towards her at once and drew her into his arms.

"He shot him, Sully", Michaela said, still stunned, "Sid. He shot his own father to protect Wenona."

Hank heard what Michaela said, too; his eyes clung to Wenona, to her black dishevelled hair, her bleeding arm she had put around Sid's shoulder, her bloodstained face. For the second time in his life he had believed that he had lost her for good. He knew that he wouldn't be able to stand it if it really happened. She was everything that really mattered to him. She was everything…

He wanted to run to her, touch her, hold her, caress her, but he let her have this moment with Sid, who had buried his head in her shoulder, sobbing.

"I told him, that he shouldn't hurt you. I told him", Sid repeated over and over again, while Wenona stroked his hair, not saying a word, worried.

Hank had come closer. He stood silently beside them and didn't dare talk to Wenona. But Marshal Reeves stepped towards them. He took Sid by the shoulder, cast a short and soothing glance to Wenona, and said to the boy: "You did the right thing, Sid. You had no other choice. Nobody can blame you. Your father should have listened to you."

Those were simple words for something that couldn't actually be put into words, but words which Sid was able to understand, which reached him and helped him. He did the right thing… . His father had always wanted him to do the right thing, to behave like a man. In the end Sid had done exactly that, and it had cost his father his life.

"Come, Sid, we'll take you home and your father too", the Marshal said, "nobody will ever get to know that it was you who shot. That's not necessary."

Then he asked Daniel to take this job, and also to inform the local sheriff and tell him that Marshal Reeves himself would get in touch with him.

The Marshal had the situation completely under control, and with his resolute and direct way of handling things, he made sure that everybody, even Sid, gradually calmed down.

When the Marshal moved away with Sid, Wenona searched for Hank's eyes for the first time. He reached out his hand silently, and she threw herself into his arms, closed her eyes, wanted to forget everything. She just heard the noises around, but she didn't want to see anything. She just wanted to be here with Hank and to hold onto him.

In the meantime, Daniel set off together with Sid and Karl's corpse, which they had packed onto his horse.

And then Marshal Reeves came to Wenona once again. He took a deep breath, as if he carried a heavy burden. He briefly met Hank's gaze, who looked at him suspiciously and wrapped his arms instinctively closer around Wenona.

"Wenona?" the Marshal spoke to the young woman. She opened her eyes slowly and looked up to him. There were not many things which could unsettle Marshal Reeves, not even a boy who shot his own father, but a look from these eyes could. It hit him right in the heart. But still … he had to do his duty.

"Is it true, what he said about you?"

"She saved our lives", Hank burst out immediately, "we could escape only because of her. And she almost lost her own life by saving ours."

Michaela's heart seemed to sink down to her knees. She hadn't been with them when Karl had betrayed Wenona, and so she could only suspect the circumstances. But one thing was clear: Marshal Reeves had found out.

"Is it true, that you were involved in those abductions?" Marshal Reeves asked once more, without paying attention to Hank.

Michaela rushed forward to him.

"Marshal Reeves, she was just used, you see. Those two men abused her and mistreated her the same way as they mistreated their victims."

Marshal Reeves just looked at Wenona. Sadly. But he still asked one last time: "Did he tell the truth?"


	46. Chapter 46

_46._

_The world stopped turning. Life held its breath, fell silent. It must be like this shortly before death came. The last, the very last second of life would become an age in which you were alone with your memories. A last gift._

_The truth? What was the truth? Nothing of what was really true would she ever be able to explain. Truth couldn't be put into words. No words could ever express what she felt, when she saw her mother die; what she felt, when Cass took her by force; what she suffered when she watched Warner kill someone. And no words could ever express how much she loved Hank …_

_She would have to leave Colorado Springs. Her life. The only life she had ever considered as such, since the day her mother had died. Wouldn't it have been better if Karl had shot her, or she had already died three months before?_

_No, she thought, and she felt his arms around her body, and she knew she would feel them until the end of time. No, it wasn't better, because when she went away, she could still take something along: her memories._

_Memories of three months of life, happiness, hope …_

_Memories of a home._

_She remembered the very first moment when she had woken up at the clinic and had seen Hank sleeping in an armchair beside her._

_She remembered when Dr. Mike had shown her her room, and that Katie had jumped up and down on her bed._

_She remembered the first surgery where she had assisted Dr. Mike._

_She remembered the moment when Sully introduced her to Cloud Dancing, and the Indian had greeted her in Lakota._

_She remembered Loren, who had tried to talk her into buying a dress almost every time she had entered the store, because – as he said – she would certainly look much prettier in a dress than in those coarse clothes that she wore most of the time; Teresa and their frequent conversations about the school. She remembered when Horace had asked her in private one day whether she knew a remedy for homesickness, because he still longed for his family so much sometimes._

_She remembered Brian who had always admired her like a heroine, because she had saved his Ma; Matthew, who had brought her a horse one day and asked if she could ride. First she had removed the saddle, and then she had shown him._

_She remembered that Preston had asked her once if she would brew some of her medicinal potions for his health-resort hotel. He wanted to share the profit with her. She had rejected this offer in a friendly but determined manner._

_She remembered the day when she was sitting with Grace on the bench in the cemetery, and they were talking about Anthony and about the miscarriage which had only been a few month ago then. They were talking about fate and pain and about much more. For hours. She remembered the heartfelt handshake after this conversation, and Robert E., who was waiting on the bridge to meet his wife._

_She remembered Jake, leaning on the column outside his barbershop and waiting for new customers. And she remembered what the Reverend had replied when Loren had told him it was a pity that he wasn't able to see her beautiful eyes: "I can hear them, Loren, believe me I can hear them."_

_She remembered Dorothy, whose eyes began to shine whenever Cloud Dancing came to town; Daniel, who had been so friendly and had started to stammer almost every time he had seen her, and whom she had had to disappoint so much._

_She remembered all the familiar paths around Colorado Springs, which Sully had shown her mostly and which she used to walk along several times a day and always conscious of being free._

_She remembered Hank … constantly appearing at the clinic, sitting in front of his saloon, looking at her …_

_And she remembered last night, when he had said that he loved her. She had heard it, and she would never forget it._

_And then … she returned to the earth, the pictures became blurred, she started to hear, see, feel again._

_She felt Hank, who had pressed her firmly against him, and she saw Marshal Reeves, who looked at her seriously, even almost sadly. He was waiting for an answer._

_A last memory reached her: "And what will come at the end of the dreams?" – "Life, Wenona."_

_She raised her head a bit higher, as she had done when she had faced Karl in front of the jail._

_It was her life …_

"Yes, it's true."


	47. Chapter 47

47.

It was already about six o'clock in the evening, when they got back to Colorado Springs.

Michaela and Hank had given the Marshal a detailed and forceful description of the events of their abduction on the way back. They had told him how Warner and Cass had treated Wenona; how she had tried to help them escape several times and how she, when everything failed, had shot Cass in the very last second and had thrown herself onto Warner, regardless of the fact that she hardly had a chance against him. And finally, how she had been shot on their run through the forest and had almost died.

"Marshal Reeves", Michaela implored, "Wenona isn't a criminal, you can certainly see that. She was dragged into these crimes, forced to do what she did. She saved us and risked her own life by doing so."

"I believe you, Dr. Quinn", Marshal Reeves answered, "it is indeed impressive how she acted in your case. But the court will investigate the question why she didn't act like that earlier. Fact is that she was involved in those abductions, and it's the duty of the court to judge in what way she was involved and to what extent she is to blame.

"You know perfectly well that she doesn't stand a chance of being judged fairly", Hank got worked up. The Marshal, who was looking ahead, expressionless and seemingly unimpressed, cast him a short glance. "And why not?" he asked.

"Cause she's half-Indian", Sully said, "you can't be so naïve that you believe in justice where Indians are concerned." The Marshal didn't reply to that.

…

…

Countless citizens awaited their arrival in Colorado Springs and came to meet them. But the joy of seeing them all in a more or less healthy state was soon replaced by overall dismay when they heard that Marshal Reeves would take Wenona to court.

After they had dismounted their horses, he went towards her. She hadn't said a word after she had given him the answer to his question.

He pointed at the bandage around her arm and asked kindly: "Does it hurt very much?" She just shook her head.

"Is it alright for you, if I question you right now?" She looked at him in surprise. What did he want to know from her? He already knew everything anyway.

"That's part of it, and besides that, I'd like to know what _you_ have to say", he explained to her, and when Hank stepped up to them, he added: "And I want to talk to you in private."

Wenona and Hank exchanged a look, and he walked over to the saloon where he sat down on the step of the porch and propped his head in both hands. Michaela walked towards him: "Are you alright, Hank? Maybe you should come with me to the clinic, so that I …" She fell silent of her own accord.

"Please, leave me alone, Michaela", Hank murmured tonelessly, "please."

The crowd of people scattered and the Marshal took Wenona along to the sheriff's office. Only Hank still remained in front of the saloon, and Michaela and Sully took a seat vis-à-vis on the bench in front of the clinic.

…

…

First of all, Marshal Reeves offered Wenona a seat. She wasn't shocked by the fact that the questioning took place at the jail. Where else? She sat down on a chair in front of the desk and the Marshal took the place behind it, facing her.

And then he asked her to tell. She didn't know what to say or where to begin, but he said that she should just tell him everything that came to her mind, no matter if it was in the right order or not.

She started with the day when Warner had come, and had taken her and Cass along to his 'activities'.

"He wanted to have me with them, because my skills were useful for him and the things he intended to do", she explained. She told of what jobs he had planed for her to do; that she had to brew all kinds of anaesthetic-, sedative- or paralysing potions. She talked about the first abduction and the moment when Warner had scalped that unknown man in front of Melissa St. Claire's eyes. And in front of her own.

Then she talked about the second abduction, when he had killed the brother of the abducted woman, Mathilda Willoughby. She talked about the moment when it had become clear that the ransom for that woman hadn't been there, and that Warner, without any hesitation, had plunged a knife into her heart, and afterwards had sent her scalp to her husband.

She told the Marshal all this without trying to present herself as being innocent, but it still didn't escape the Marshal's notice that she had been completely devastated by these events. She didn't have to talk about how much she had suffered from this, the horror she had gone through, because he could read it in her face without any effort.

He asked her whether they had done something to her as well. She hesitated with the answer.

"Warner never did … anything to me directly. I was just scared of him. He was so heartless, without any compassion, without mercy; there was no forgiveness if somebody made a mistake, if somebody disobeyed or even opposed. And Cass … he had … raped me since I had come to that family, so I was … used to it. What they actually did to me was … that they let me see these crimes … that they involved me."

Marshal Reeves was deeply affected, but he tried to push his feelings aside and carry on the questioning as objectively as possible.

"With 'that family" you mean the family of Karl Miller?" he made sure. She nodded her head.

"When did you come to them?" he asked.

"At the age of thirteen, after my mother died in an attack on our village by the army."

The Marshal gave her a long look.

"And how old…", he cleared his throat, "excuse me, how old are you now?"

"Twenty-five", Wenona answered.

He swallowed. Then he stood up and started to pace up and down the room.

"What was different about the abduction of Dr. Quinn and Hank Lawson?" he asked abruptly. "Why did you suddenly fight for their lives and risk your own, when you had been so scared before?" He stopped pacing around and stood still next to his chair again.

Wenona looked down at her hands.

"It was Hank".

The Marshal nodded, as if he had already thought this himself. "You had fallen in love with him."

"No", she replied, "that wasn't it."

"What else?" he asked in astonishment.

"He looked like my father", Wenona said.

Marshal Reeves let himself sink into his chair. "What?"

"He looked like my father. He was a white man. I've never met him, but my mother described him very often to me. Tall, slender, long blond locks, blue eyes. Like Hank."

Marshal Reeves sat in front of her and didn't say a word. Her father.

"You said, you didn't know your father?" he asked after a while.

"No, my mother didn't live with him." Wenona had the impression that the Marshal wanted to hear more, and so she told him the same story she had told Michaela and Hank back then, and about which she liked to talk much more than about Warner and Cass.

Marshal Reeves listened, spellbound, as Wenona spoke about the encounter of her parents and their love story, which could only last one single day. When she had finished he got up and paced around the room again.

"So, you acquired your skills from your mother", he established in passing.

"Yes", Wenona said sadly, "it's just that she would never have used them the way I did."

"She would certainly have understood you", let he slip involuntarily. Wenona turned around to look at him, but he had already turned his face away.

"Do you know the name of your father?" He was walking behind her past her chair, up and down.

"No", Wenona said, "and my mother didn't know it either. They didn't tell each other their names. I think, because they knew that they wouldn't see each other ever again. My mother said she wanted to remember _him_ and not his name."

"So … so you don't know anything about your father, except what he approximately looked like?" the Marshal asked and finally took his seat again. Wenona started to wonder why he wanted to know all this, and whether he possibly thought worse of her after he had come to know the story of her parentage; whether he condemned her mother or her father, the man about whom she didn't know anything but the fact that he looked like Hank.

"No", she said, and avoided his gaze, "I don't know anything else."

The Marshal lowered his head for a moment and propped his forehead against his folded hands, then ran them through his hair and looked at Wenona again. And suddenly it came back to her mind. She smiled at the thought of it:

"There _is_ something else that I once had from my father", she said and the Marshal listened to her with an expectant expression in his eyes.

"When I was a child I had a lock of his hair. He had cut it and given it to my mother, and she had given him a strand of her hair too."

Wenona made a short pause before she dejectedly added that she had lost this one and only keepsake of her father and mother during the attack on the village.

The Marshal just stared at her; it was almost as if he was looking through her.

He hadn't been wrong: there had never been another case of such great importance before, and never before he had been more at a loss.

What was he supposed to do with Wenona? Wenona's father had known what he had to do and he had helped her mother to escape. But that was different. Was it different?

He got up abruptly and took a deep breath.

"I think we can stop now. I have the statements of Dr. Quinn and Hank Lawson about everything that happened during the abduction and I don't question them. Nevertheless, I have to take you with me to Denver tomorrow where your case will be heard in court." His tone was noticeably factual, but he spoke in a slightly hunted manner which wasn't usual for him.

Wenona hung her head. At the beginning, and also while she had spoken about her parents, she had gained a little bit of hope, because she had felt that the Marshal was a good and compassionate man, and he had given her the feeling that he believed and understood her. But he would do what he just had to do, even if it was obviously not easy for him.

She got up and was about to go into the cell, but he held her back.

"I don't think that it is necessary to lock you up", he said and took her along outside the jail.

"You can stay at the clinic until tomorrow. We'll ride to Denver on the ten-o'clock-train. I'll wait for you at the station." Wenona looked at him from the side, speechless, while they were walking alongside each other.

Michaela and Sully were still sitting on the bench and Hank on the porch in front of the saloon.

The Marshal said good night to Wenona when they had reached the door of the clinic: "I trust you, Wenona. Go inside now."

She did what he had told her, threw a short look to Michaela and Sully, and a longer one to Hank, and then she turned towards the door.

"Wenona?" Marshal Reeves stepped up to her once more. "By the way, what was the name of your mother?"

Wenona was astonished, because nobody had ever asked her this before. But her eyes began to shine, when she answered him: "Her name was Mapiya … that means 'sky'."


	48. Chapter 48

48.

Wenona leaned against the window in her room at the clinic and pressed her forehead against the cool pane. She had already stood there for hours and looked outside to the now deserted street, which was bathed in soft moonlight.

She hadn't even dreamt of going to bed; not during this last night in Colorado Springs.

Vis-à-vis at the Gold Nugget the doors were closed, the lights put out. The last customer had left hours ago. She hadn't seen anything of Hank for quite a while. He had struggled to his feet eventually and gone inside, head hanging, without even unsaddling his horse. He hadn't looked up to her window. Maybe that was his way of coping with the situation.

How quickly things could change. Last night she had been so happy in the room next door, so hopeful, like never before, and just one day later everything had turned completely upside down. What would change within a period of ten years then?

She didn't fool herself: if she left the town the next day, she would never come back again. Never.

She looked down to the street and absorbed everything, imagined the street during the daytime, when all the people, who had become so familiar and dear to her over the last three months, filled it with life. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the background noise: the hooves of the horses which trotted through the streets, the noise of the cart wheels, the noise from the saloon, the barking of the dogs, voices, sometimes people who called for Dr. Mike, the church bell on Sundays, the metallic sound when Robert E. worked on the anvil at the smithy, ….

Wenona opened her eyes and listened. There was actually a noise. Downstairs at the door. Even if people opened the door ever so carefully, there was always still a soft creak. Somebody was inside. And now he came slowly up the stairs.

Her heart was thumping, but she didn't move away from the window. The steps came nearer. And then the door opened, slowly. In the moonlight she was only able to see a silhouette, but she would have recognized it amongst thousands.

"Hank!" She rushed forward and fell into his arms, and he pressed her against his body with the same passion. For a little while they remained in this position, just holding each other. But then Hank said: "Quick, pack up a few things you need." She drew away from him a bit and looked at him in astonishment. Only now she became aware that he was wearing his hat, as well as a jacket and his gun belt.

"Hurry up", he repeated, "we'll run away from here."

"What?" she asked, dumbfounded, and didn't stir from the spot.

"We'll run away. I've prepared everything. I won't allow them to put you in jail."

"Hank, no", Wenona said in dismay, but Hank didn't listen to her.

"I can't simply watch you leaving. I can't lose you. We'll go away together. Now."

"Hank, please", she tried to stop him. She felt his hands trembling, and his voice became more and more agitated as he just kept talking away at her in the desperate hope of convincing her.

"The Marshal sure let you stay here on purpose. He wanted to give you the chance to flee. And I'm coming with you. We just go further west, maybe to California."

Tears welled up in her eyes. "Please, stop it", she whispered.

"I won't stay here alone, Wenona. We'll go now. I won't allow it. I can't". His voice wavered.

"No Hank", she interrupted him, and the tears were running down her face now, "I won't run away."

"Why not?" burst out of him, wildly and desperately, and he shook her as if she was somebody he had to bring around.

"Why not?" His voice failed him.

Then he drew her close to him again and encircled her in his arms. "Why not? Why not? Why not?" he whispered over and over again. And then everything became too much. With the realization that every hope was extinguished by her refusal to flee, his pain gained the upper hand. He wasn't able to keep his feet and he just sank to the floor, Wenona still in his arms. He didn't care about losing his composure. He didn't care about anything. He buried his face in her lap and cried, unrestrained.

She felt her heart breaking. Nothing she had experienced in her life so far had ever hurt so much. She stroked his head tenderly, but she had no comfort for him, since she couldn't find comfort herself.

"Do you remember, back then, when you were bound to that tree and you heard that they wanted to kill you … and how", she said after a while, "you were so brave. I admired you so much. You were so incredibly brave. And now you have to be again. For me. Please. Otherwise I don't know how I'm supposed to stand this."

He straightened up and leaned his back against the wall, exhausted.

"I can not run away, you see?" Wenona tried to explain, "to be on the run wouldn't be any better than to be in jail. I don't want to leave Colorado Springs. I'm not a criminal, and I don't want to live as if I were one. And I don't want you to give up your life for me. I want to know that you are here. I want to be able to imagine you sitting in front of the saloon or throwing out some drunken fighters or annoying Dr. Mike." She tried to laugh and took his hand. He looked at her. He knew that he wouldn't be able to persuade her anymore. In the pale moonlight he saw a strand of her black locks hanging in her face. He brushed it gently away, stroked her cheek, her head and then brought it closer to him.

Their kiss was long and ardent, and like their very first kiss in that cabin back then it carried them away to a place where no danger, no farewell, no time existed.

"Marry me", he whispered, when they finally parted. She looked at him with big eyes, and then a wistful smile formed on her face. She flung her arms around his neck and said: "No, Hank, I won't. I don't want you to be bound to me."

He broke away from her and looked into her eyes: "But …" She put her fingers gently over his mouth. "No", she said, determined, "I will always belong to you. But I won't be here. I won't marry, if I'm not able to have a marriage. And you should be free for anything the future might bring." Hank shook his head in disbelief.

"I love you", Wenona said, full of tenderness, "that's all that matters."

"And I love you", he answered softly. She smiled and said: "I know." And for the first time that night he could smile too.

"But I … I want to have something else from you", she said then hesitantly and took his hand again. He squeezed it and remained in an expectant silence. She looked deep in his eyes and said: I want to be with you. Now." She felt his surprised reaction, heard as he briefly held his breath.

"I want to take only good memories with me, when I go away from here. And I want to remember _you_ and not Cass. I want you to extinguish the memory of him. I want to know how it is to do it for love. At least once in my life."

_For love_.

"All I want is this one memory, and then I can go."

_A memory_

He had never thought about the meaning it could have to sleep with a woman. He had done it so often, and it had always been about the satisfaction of the moment, which had already been forgotten the next minute.

If he was with Wenona, nothing would be as it had been before; he knew that. It would become a memory for him too, a memory that would extinguish everything else. A promise, an oath, an 'I do'.

_I do._

He got to his feet, lifted her up, and carried her to the bed. Then he took off his gun-belt and his jacket, and lay down beside her. They just lay there for several minutes, looking at each other, caressing each other, before he bent down to her and kissed her, her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, her hair, her neck …

She felt her body becoming weightless; felt how she lost the control over it, lost _herself_ in his arms. She hardly perceived how he slowly took off her clothes, how she took off his clothes, only felt his lips, his skin, his hands. Every kiss tasted of longing and desire; every touch ran like lightning through their bodies, and drew them into a fire of emotions. And then they were one, inseparable, for the moment and for eternity.


	49. Chapter 49

49

They hadn't slept even for a minute that night. Silently, they had been lying in a tight embrace, savouring every moment of their last time together, and had made love to each other again and again.

When the morning had bathed the room in bright sunlight long ago, they rose and started to get ready. Wenona packed up a few things and then sat on the bed next to Hank. She had put on a white blouse and a pretty blue skirt Dr Mike had given her once as a present. Wenona had said that it was much too pretty for her, and to wander around the woods in, and to collect herbs, but Michaela had replied that the right occasion would certainly come some day. Now it was here.

When it was time to go, she took his hand and drew him along with her. It was as if everything inside her pulled tight, as she felt his pain, felt how hard it was for him to take this walk with her. But she also felt that he tried to be strong. For her. And she would do the same for him.

As they stepped outside the door, Michaela and Sully were waiting for them, and neither of them was surprised to see Hank at Wenona's side. Matthew, who held Katie on his arm, and Brian stood beside them.

Michaela stepped forward to Wenona. She had visible difficulties in keeping her composure too, but she managed it, smiled at the young woman and said: "We'll walk along with you to the station, Wenona." Wenona nodded gratefully and gave her a hug.

Dorothy and Cloud Dancing came over from the Gazette and declared that they would come along as well.

When they all turned to leave, Haley, Greer and Al appeared from the saloon and joined them. Other people, among them Teresa Slicker, came from the café. Loren came from his store and guided the Reverend by the arm. He gave Wenona a smile and said: "I always knew that you would look beautiful in a dress." Wenona smiled back and squeezed his hand briefly. Jake came out from his barbershop, as well as the customer whom he was just serving and who was only half shaved, and both joined the ever-increasing crowd of people around Wenona. Grace and Robert E. came from the smithy and Preston from the bank. Horace had stopped selling tickets for the ten-o'clock-train and came towards them. People were coming from everywhere.

It was as if the whole of Colorado Springs was standing behind Wenona, when they finally reached the train-station. Marshal Reeves was already waiting on the platform and looked towards them. His face was motionless, and no one could tell if he was moved in any way by this demonstration of solidarity of a whole town, but his breathing was strangely heavy.

When Wenona walked up to him, he smiled at her, full of warmth.

"I knew that you would come, Wenona. I wasn't wrong about you."

Hank, whose arm was still around Wenona's shoulder, didn't look at him, but directed his eyes somewhere in the distance, only concentrated on maintaining his composure.

The train was already standing at the station and was ready to leave soon. In a few minutes everything would be over.

Some people looked at Michaela, and Jake whispered to her: "Dr. Mike, please, say something! You can do it."

Michaela felt all eyes upon her and stepped nervously forward. What was she supposed to say that she hadn't already said so far? Several times. But she had to. And she opened her mouth: "Marshal Reeves, please, let me …"

The Marshal immediately raised his hand and cut her short.

"Dr. Quinn, please save your breath. Because, you see, today", he cast a look to Jake, "today I am the law again. I spent last night writing my statement, which closes the file on this case for good. I think the result is clear and plausible, and there will be nobody who will challenge it."

Michaela hung her head in resignation, but the Marshal continued to speak: "Melissa St.Claire spoke explicitly of three abductors, but she also said that the third abductor had never harmed her in any way; quite the opposite: that he behaved in a friendly and helpful manner towards her, and wasn't exactly treated very well by the other two men. It's not very likely, that such a person survived very long in the company of such brutal criminals, and this again corresponds with what I've learned here:" He took a deep breath before he finished the sentence: "There were only two abductors. In the case that there ever was a third one, this person, according to all findings,has been dead for a long time."

Wenona raised her head, her eyes became wide, and she felt as Hank's finger dug into her shoulders out of tension, but she couldn't believe what she had just heard. She opened her mouth, wanted to ask, wanted to understand, but she wasn't able to utter a word. There was dead silence around the place; the Marshal's words seemed not to have really reached the minds of the people. They looked at him, helpless, speechless, incredulous, didn't dare interpret what he had said.

The Marshal moved closer to Wenona and took her hands gently in his.

"People don't want to hear complicated stories, they want to see the world in black or white, and so we'll do them this favour. And by the way, who would really believe such a story? Not me anyway, and that's why I didn't mention you in my statement with even one single word, but wrote of which I'm deeply convinced and which you confirmed again this morning when you showed up here: You are not a criminal who belongs in prison." And with a look at Hank he added: "You belong here."

Wenona's eyes filled with tears, and with a heartfelt "Thank you" she flung her arms around the Marshal's neck at first, and then around Hank's, who buried his face in her hair and was literally shaken by happiness.

She heard a babble of voices starting behind them that quickly became louder and happier; all the tension broke out into a celebration of joy. The people came to her, and Hank, whether he liked it not, had to let go her, since everybody wanted to hug Wenona; but at least he received a few pats on the shoulder too.

When Michaela came over to Wenona, both women were overwhelmed by their feelings. They laughed and cried at the same time while they were embracing each other. And Wenona whispered in Michaela's ear: "Thank you." Michaela looked at her, astonished, and asked: "What for?" And Wenona smiled and said: "For my life."

Marshal Reeves kept a bit of a distance and watched this happiness. His eyes were shining, moist with tears and never let go of Wenona, the young half-Indian-woman who knew her father only from the narrations of her mother.

The engine whistled; the train would leave at any moment.

It was time.

He walked towards Wenona, who was just about to go back to Hank, and put his hand gently on her arm.

"May I talk to you once more, Wenona? It won't take long; the train will leave in a minute." She followed him, surprised, a few paces along the platform, so that they were undisturbed.

She looked at him expectantly, and he thought that she had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, and he smiled at this thought. Then he stuck his hand into the left breast pocket of his vest and pulled out a small, flat, circular tin which looked very old. He took Wenona's hand and laid the small tin in it.

"I've always carried this close to my heart for twenty-six years. I want _you_ to have it now. Please, don't open it before the train has left." He closed her fingers around the tin, raised his hand to briefly and softly stroke her head, took his bag and boarded the train, which started to move at this very moment.

"If you wish, I'll come back", he called to her. He raised his hand to wave goodbye and cast a last glance to Wenona, who looked at her hand in confusion.

The train gradually gathered speed and moved further and further away. But she could still see the Marshal at the door of the last wagon. She carefully felt for the lid of the small tin and finally opened it. What she saw brought tears to her eyes immediately; shivers ran through her whole body and her heart thumped wildly. She wanted to run after the train, but after a few steps she almost collapsed. Hank saw it with a fright and caught her. She gasped and was unable to speak; she just held the tin out to him and he saw what was inside: a long strand of black hair.

He looked at her, uncomprehendingly, and she leaned against him, held onto him, as she buried the tin in her hand again, like a treasure.

"He … he … he's my … my father."

She clung to him, sobbing uncontrollably, and he held her. They stood there like that for a long time; the other people on the platform had left long ago, when Wenona's stream of tears finally dried up. And all the time Hank held her. And when she breathed calmly again and stopped trembling, he finally gathered his courage. And he whispered it, close to her ear, and still it sounded like a cry for help, an imploration: "Marry me."


	50. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

It was a wedding like Colorado Springs had never seen before.

It wasn't the biggest wedding, but it was by far the most exceptional, one that nobody had ever expected this way.

Had Hank Lawson been so longsighted to have taken bets about half a year before, he could have become the richest man in town in one go, but very likely he would have bet wrong himself.

Hank Lawson, in front of the altar at the church, was just absolutely impossible, and everything else was actually equally impossible. Jake Slicker, for example, who was standing next to him, dressed in his best suit, and who fumbled at least a hundred times for the ring in his pocket, perhaps because he wanted to make sure that there was a concrete piece of evidence for the fact that he would really and truly act as Hank's best man at his wedding in a few minutes. Or the excited crowd of people who had gathered to witness this spectacle.

And everybody, really everybody was there.

Grace and Robert E. rushed into the church barely at the last minute, because they had finished the preparations for the following celebration. Horace was sitting one row in front of them with such a perfectly contented face he had rarely shown during the past few years. He was so happy because right next to him, a little girl with blond locks and her pretty mother had taken their seats. Myra had come with Samantha to Colorado Springs because she wouldn't have wanted to miss this event for anything in the world. In the next row, Dorothy, who had given up her irreconcilable attitude towards Hank more and more, was sitting between a broadly-grinning Loren and Cloud Dancing, who smiled rather softly to himself.

On the other side of the aisle, Teresa Slicker was sitting, immensely amused about her husband, who seemed to be so nervous as if he himself was supposed to get married once again. To Jake's displeasure Preston was sitting right next to her, and showed his most charming side.

Directly in front of them, dressed in high-necked blouses, their hair properly pinned up, were Haley and Greer, who had agreed to keep on working for Hank, however not of course in their old positions.

Matthew had had a surprise a few days earlier when Emma had come for a visit, and naturally she had wanted to stay for the wedding too. They had taken their seats behind Brian, who was sitting between Sully and a tall lanky young man with dark hair: Zach, Hank's son.

Sully had Katie on his lap, and the place next to him, right beside the aisle, wasn't occupied.

They all, just like a lot of other people who crowded the church, stared expectantly, amused, incredulously and somehow overwhelmed forwards at the bridegroom.

The bridegroom. This word suited Hank like a badly-fitting suit, like a cup of camomile-tea, or like turning the other cheek.

But this morning it was exactly what he was: a bridegroom, and regardless of the smirking faces of his friends, he was just like any other bridegroom in the world: washed, combed and shaven, well dressed, nervous, with sweat-damp hands, a dry mouth and the question of whether he should have gone to the outhouse once more flashing through his mind.

Everything was like it was at a real wedding, so obviously it had to be a real wedding.

But there was still something missing, the most exceptional thing of all: the bride.

Hank was standing with his back turned to the altar, looking towards the entrance. His heart was thumping as if he didn't know who would come towards him from there very soon. He knew, and still it would be as if he saw her for the first time, and he wouldn't see her like that ever again. He didn't want to miss even a fraction of a second, and wanted to burn the sight of her in his memory forever. And it would happen any minute. The church was filled to the last place, the Reverend was standing in his position, the music started and all heads turned to the entrance …

First Michaela came down the aisle as the maid of honour, so radiant, as if she was reliving her own wedding again. She positioned herself to the left side of the altar, and Hank had to swallow for the first time already.

And then she was there.

In a white Indian wedding dress that reached the floor and was decorated with the finest silk embroidery, a white headband in her black hair, the breathtakingly beautiful eyes shining like two gleaming jewels, she came down the aisle at the arm of her father. Her face beamed with happiness, and her smile, which had always enchanted him, had never been brighter.

If love was ever tangible, it was in this very moment when the most impossible couple anyone could imagine met in this small church room, at the end of the dreams, at the beginning of their new life together.

During the entire ceremony they didn't turn their eyes away from each other, not even once, as if they still couldn't believe it. In their hearts they had said it long ago, and now they said it in front of the world: _I do._

And when he put the ring onto her finger and held her small, delicate hand, he thought briefly back to the moment when she had touched him with it for the very first time, and that this hand had opened his heart to her.

The Reverend actually could have done without the usual reminder that the bridegroom was allowed to kiss the bride now, because even before he really spoke out the first words, Wenona and Hank were already clinging to each other, absorbed in a fervent kiss. It was very likely the longest wedding kiss in the history of Colorado Springs, and the crowd of people who had to witness it, and gradually became a bit embarrassed, were grateful to Grace, who got up first and said that surely _everybody_ was hungry now and could take some food.

And then there was eating and drinking and dancing and kissing … even Brian was infected by all the kissing that proliferated more and more amongst the adults during the day, and in a moment when nobody was looking, he disappeared with Nellie behind Loren's store, and when he came back, he had learned something new and suddenly felt so grown up that he even almost thought he could do with a whiskey, …just almost of course …

Zach carried his sketch pad wherever he went and made one sketch after another.

Michaela and Sully were extremely happy on this day too, and one of the reasons was a special wedding guest who showed up during the afternoon and congratulated especially Wenona from the bottom of his heart: Daniel had come back to Colorado Springs, but he wasn't alone. On his arm was a female creature who was about half as tall as him, as Hank always liked to joke later on, and who seemed to be very pretty, very nice, incredibly spirited and very much in love. And obviously Daniel was too.

The newlyweds themselves disappeared eventually. They seemed to have just vanished into thin air. Not that anybody was worried. Loren, who had had a few glasses of spiked punch too many, said that they had probably retired to the nearest tepee, which landed him a terribly reproachful look from Dorothy. But when she saw Cloud Dancing smiling, her anger faded away. And after all, which nobody knew, Loren had come quite close to the truth.

Marshal Reeves had used the afternoon to dance a lot with his daughter, and so he didn't hold it against Hank that he wanted to have her for his very own now. He had a good time and Sully was grateful to him because he didn't have to join his dance-crazy wife in every dance, but had found in Marshal Reeves somebody who relieved him now and then. Even if Sully had learned to dance in the meantime quite well, it was still not his favourite activity.

But when it became darker he had to take his turn again.

"The lasdance is always reserfor my favourite partner", Michaela whispered in his ear with a lascivious voice, as he just, relaxed and amused, watched Brian and Nellie, and she drew him with surprisingly still a lot of energy to the dance floor and pressed herself against him.

"Michaela?" Sully looked around, a bit uncertain.

"Mhmmm?" she answered with the same deep suggestive voice as before.

"Did you…" he chuckled in amusement, "did you … drink something?" Michaela drew back indignantly. "What masyou say that?" Sully was hardly able to suppress his laughter. "Well, you … you are a bit …funny."

"I only drank from the punch, and thawas made by Grace. There is no alohol init."

Sully looked at Michaela, speechless, and didn't know if he was supposed to be worried or rather to burst out laughing.

"Michaela in the pot to the right was the punch for the … well … it was … Hank's special … punch, you know."

Michaela looked at him in dismay, and Sully kept on desperately trying to suppress his laughter.

"That … that can not be, I … I certainly would have … ohhh, this …"

"Never mind, Michaela, it's not that bad. After all, you are not that drunk. We don't tell anybody."

Michaela's mouth was still open with shock and anger. "I'm not that …? Sully!"

But he tried to cover up the situation by just keep on dancing with her..

"Hank mustn't hear about this, Sully. If he finds out, he will forever tease me with HIC!"

That was too much for Sully. He clung to Michaela, pressed his face into her shoulder and split his sides with laughter. Michaela was frozen for a moment; then her lips started to tremble and finally it burst out of her too.

She laughed together with Sully, so hard that her eyes filled with tears. Even if she had tried to get herself under control, she wouldn't have been able to. They clung to each other, supported each other, doubled up with laughter and just couldn't stop.

It was as if their unbridled laughter resounded through the whole of Colorado Springs. Michaela Quinn laughed like never before in her life. She laughed and laughed and laughed. But she didn't have to be afraid that anybody would look askance at her, since a lot of people had helped themselves from the wrong pot.

"Oh my God, Sully", she gasped, when she finally got her breath back, "that's just not possible."

"But you have seen today, what all is possible", Sully replied with a shrug. Michaela chuckled into his shoulder once again. "And", Sully added, "didn't you say once that you think that nothing is impossible?"

"No", Michaela contradicted decidedly, "I said, that I think that anything is possible."

Sully stopped short. "That's the same."

"No, it's not … Or is it?" They burst into laughter once again.

From a distance they saw Hank and Wenona coming out of the woods and walking arm in arm with each other across the meadow.

"And, who knows", Sully said with a smile at the sight of them, "maybe one day people will even fly to the moon."

**xxxxxxx**

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_**THE END**_


End file.
